Lithasblot and Old Lace
by BonGarland
Summary: Thor is invited to a days-long Asgardian festival, at which important inter-realm negotiations are to take place, with Jane Foster's household as guests of honor. That includes Darcy Lewis. But when an assassination attempt leaves no one safe from suspicion, it's up to an unlikely collaboration to illuminate a grave threat at hand. Post-TDW serial.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys, my latest Tasertricks extravaganza. This will also be a serial, but albeit at a much more sedate pace. It'll be a mystery once we get going, and suggestions are always welcome via reviews. I've been reading up heavily on the mythology, and a bunch of it may make appearances. That being said,**** I've taken some liberties with a few realms, and the, uh, terminology for their citizens and such. **

**Enjoy.**

* * *

Darcy was just turning from the espresso machine, a lovingly-handcrafted, foamy cappuccino nursed in both hands, when the burst of rainbow light flooded through the windows of the London condo she was sharing with Jane. And Intern Ian. And the often-pantsless Erik Selvig. And, now, Thor.

It was super cramped, and she coveted these quiet moments of solitude like no other time, often abandoning her studies to enjoy a nice mug of coffee or tea by herself, reading out on the patio.

As luck would have it, this particular day was marked by a torrential downpour that had driven her inside, just before the patio was used as a landing pad for the extraterrestrial form of a subway. She was far too busy dropping her caffeinated confection to be relieved she wasn't squished like a bug, far too busy gaping in slack-jawed amazement at the pair of assumedly-Asgardian warriors who were attempting to fit through the patio door simultaneously.

A broken mug, steaming mess on the floor, and shattered doorframe later, Volstagg and Fandral were in the condo's living room.

"That door was locked," Darcy muttered, oblivious to the fact that whipped cream and caramel syrup were covering her new leather boots, and that hot vanilla cappuccino was now nourishing the linoleum.

"Ah, perhaps _that_ was the difficulty, Fandral! We certainly fit two abreast in the corridors of Asgard!" Volstagg exclaimed. "Greetings, Lady Darcy!" He immediately lunged towards her for a bone-crushing hug before he started to poke around in the living room, lifting a vase and nearly stopping Darcy's heart when it slipped in his grip. He easily caught it up again with a booming laugh, unaware of her alarm.

"No one fits two abreast accompanying you _anywhere_, my friend," Fandral muttered with a grin in Darcy's direction, stopping her heart all over again. "Hello, my good Lady Darcy!" Blushing, she accepted his _very_ touchy-feely hug, pulling away only to spot the wreckage of her drink on the floor. With a squeal, she grabbed a dishtowel, swiping at the shards of her mug and trying to mop up the coffee at the same time. She was flashing back to New Mexico already. Why did so many mugs break around Asgardians?

"So, uh, what brings you guys here?" She managed as she worked, popping her head up over the kitchen table to see what they were doing. Volstagg had found the cookie jar and was working his way through a stack of oatmeal raisins, which was perfectly fine with Darcy; it was her least favorite flavor. Fandral had sedately leaned himself against the edge of the wall dividing the kitchen from living room. Somehow their costumes - er, wardrobes - looked less ridiculous. Maybe it was the context, being in the land of Shakespeare or something.

"We have come to invite Thor to Lithasblot!" Volstagg boomed, through a mouthful of cookie, half of which crumbled to fall straight into his vast beard.

All Darcy heard was "We hff cmm Tor Lifflesboat!" Arching a brow as she rose from her crouched cleaning position, she aimed it at Fandral, who gave another award-winning smile that had, she was sure, lured many a maiden to his chambers.

"It is our harvest festival, held annually in celebration of a bountiful season, and also in support of the magic that helps maintain our realm," the dashing warrior explained, a hand on the scabbard at his belt as he explained. One of the sexiest explanations _ever, _Darcy thought idly. "It is a favorite time of Thor's, and we thought perhaps he might be persuaded to attend; Asgard has not had his company in so long…"

Indeed, it had been months and months since Jane had returned, Thor soon joining her, since Darcy's living quarters had become a jar of sardines. This could be a chance to get both of them out of the house to do their extremely-loud canoodling, Darcy thought.

"When is the lifeboat festival?" She asked, and the two warriors laughed at her terminology.

"Lithasblot," Fandral corrected kindly, "is in two days' time, at the end of…Jewel-eye, I believe, for Midgard?" It was Darcy's turn to chuckle at pronunciation, retrieving her phone and shooting Jane a text to come home immediately and bring her seven-foot tall golden retriever. An answering text said they'd be there within ten minutes, and Darcy relaxed back against the counter, folding her arms and content to wait.

"So there's, what, singing, dancing, a ton of mead, a goat sacrifice at the end or something?" She asked, genuinely curious and slightly interested in attending, herself. A vacation couldn't get more exotic, at least distance-wise.

"Ah, or something," Volstagg replied slyly, jabbing an elbow in Fandral's direction, who bowed. "Of course you must attend as well, Lady Darcy, for we could not possibly describe the festival in its entire glory to you!"

Darcy cocked her head to the side, thinking it was about time she got a reprieve. Jane had been working nonstop all summer, trying to grasp how the convergence worked, and if it could be either imitated or prevented, Darcy was never sure which. She just scribbled numbers down, only to type them into the computer, print them, and then have _that _piece of paper have even more number scribbled upon it. Her life was a hard one, and she wasn't paid for any of it, except in the golden currency of "experience". Time off paid in enjoyment would be nice…

And she doubted there was a ticket booth to Asgard; free food, free booze, probably some free awesome dresses to prance around in, and if everyone looked like Fandral and Thor…Count her in.

Jane and Thor chose that moment to return, Thor thundering out a greeting from the foyer to which Darcy responded "In the kitchen!" When the pair entered, Jane paused, Thor nearly bowling her over at her abrupt stop. He was then distracted by the sight of two of his best companions.

"Volstagg! Fandral!" He cried, catching up both somehow in an elaborate three-way hug that still managed to look very manly. That was Thor to a tee, his actions that were often reminiscent of a puppy looking completely suave when it was a six-foot-plus tall thunder god doing it.

When the three had extracted themselves from the embrace and only broken _one _chair, Darcy clapped her hands, bouncing on her feet as she looked to Jane. "We're invited to a two-day long party!"

Jane arched a brow, looking to their Asgardian guests for explanation, which Volstagg jovially supplied. The astrophysicist was shaking her head by his fifth syllable, causing Darcy to bound to her side, latching both hands onto Jane's folded forearm. "C'mon boss lady, you can make science when we get back! Isn't there some Asgardian constellation you wanna document, or, or something…"

Darcy raised her brows at Thor, who jumped in. "Jane, I think it would do you good to visit Asgard on a trip of leisure. The festival is always enjoyable, and perhaps you could consult my father's library more when we are there." At the mention of books and research, Darcy could have sworn she _saw _Jane's ears perk up.

"I suppose, if it's only a few days…" Jane mumbled, biting her lip as she unfolded her arms to brace them against the chair in front of her. She was silent for a moment, then looked up. "I don't see why we can't have a bit of fun." Darcy shrieked in excitement, hugging Jane, then Thor, then managed a sandwiching hug with both Volstagg and Fandral from which she _may _have escaped with only two broken ribs.

"Come pack with me!" Darcy squealed at Jane, tugging the reluctant scientist into Darcy's cramped room and shutting the door. Jane perched herself on the edge of Darcy's bed, eyes wide as her intern and friend started pulling clothes out of her wardrobe and flinging them on the bed.

"What does one _bring_ to a hip cosmic pagan party?" Darcy wondered aloud, coming to a stop as she surveyed her closet, a hand on her hip.

Jane shrugged. "I hardly had time to plan my wardrobe when I went, but I do know this: _anything _we bring will be insufficient and inappropriate, Darce. I gathered that much." She rolled her eyes at the end, muttering something about goats and banquets that Darcy couldn't quite catch.

"'Kay, well, I'm gonna go with hooker couture then," the intern declared with a grin, snatching up some heeled boots and skinny jeans and tossing them on top of the bed's other contents. "Rattle their boots a bit." Jane dodged a hurled scarf, grimacing. "Now I'm not so sure about going…" She cut off as Darcy whirled around, shaking a finger in her face. "Jane Elizabeth Foster, if you even mention me not going again, so help me, you will incur the Wrath of the Intern." With that, she turned back to her dresser, rifling through her bras.

"Push-up or…" she muttered, and Jane chose to escape the room, favoring the destructive Asgardians over Darcy on a packing high.

* * *

On Asgard, tensions were running high in the Council Chambers. Envoys from Vanaheim, Muspelheim, and even Jötunheim were in attendance, courtesy of a formal invitation from Odin to attend this year's Lithasblot festivities.

The Allfather was in a particularly good mood, it seemed to his advisors, grinning widely as he surveyed the ambassadors crowding the room. No one else shared his enthusiasm; the Muspels had declared they would not stand _or _sit within ten paces of the Jotuns, who glared at the Vanites in turn, and Asgardians were strewn between each clan with no small amount of anxiety in their visages.

"Enough!" Odin called with a boom of his staff against the flagstone flooring, calling the meeting to order. Finally, the bickering and curses quieted, and eyes turned to the Allfather.

"I have called you all here under the banner of peace, with the hope that we may negotiate anew for harmony amongst our realms. Though we are at peace, we are very much separate, and that distresses me. Even as we celebrate a bountiful harvest due to Urda's graces, I wish to introduce new regulations for commerce between our realms. In two days' time, there shall be a grand feast, and I bid you all remain here in Asgard to enjoy the fruits of our year's labor. In the meantime, let us discuss business." A gloved hand gestured to his right, to his first advisor, who opened the discussions with concerns about skirmishes in the wilds of Vanaheim.

The Jötuns were restless, suspicious glances shooting up and down the council table throughout the meeting. Odin smiled at that, curious where their doubts would lead them.

Hours later, the meeting was adjourned until the following day, while contracts could be drawn up for further debate and, hopefully, signing after the festival.

Odin retired to his chambers for the night, waving off his servants as he banged his staff against the floor to close the heavy double doors to his room. Nothing happened, and he sniffed, annoyed, sending the staff thudding against the floor once more, and the doors cooperated, banging closed with force that rattled artwork on the walls closest to them.

A single eye scowled in displeasure at the disobedience of Gungnir, and as "Odin" turned towards the double doors leading to the balcony, the illusion fluidly dissolved. Gone was the eye patch as golden armor darkened to bronze, silver robes' woven fabric turned to black and leather, and the staff was hurled aside, its bearer snuffing out all lights in the room with a flick of his wrist. The double doors opened with a phantom breeze as Asgard's king slipped out onto the balcony, cloaked in the soothing darkness of night as he sorted his thoughts.

It was a daring move indeed, bringing potentially-hostile beings into his very council chambers, and then letting them roam loose as "honored guests", but it there was strategy among the madness. Loki was completely convinced the Lithasblot celebrations would go off with quite a hitch, and he couldn't wait. All that would remain was armoring up for the war that would inevitably follow. He would revitalize the Allfather's wartime prowess, make all other realms cower again before Asgard's might. The Aesir had grown far too lazy.

A rapping at his chamber doors startled Loki from his reverie, and he turned with a frown, flicking his fingers over his throat before Odin's gruff tones escaped his lips. "What is it?"

"Allfather, we have received confirmation that Thor will indeed be attending the festivities." A guard spoke hesitantly through the door, though they had been told to notify him as soon as the thunder god accepted the invitation of his friends.

Loki smiled. It had really been _his _invitation, his suggestion in the banquet hall one night that Volstagg and Fandral slip off to invite the buffoon to Lithasblot. It had been months since Odin's _reluctant _abdication of the throne had taken placed, and the trickster was now secure in his rule. No one was the wiser, and Thor would not be either. The mortal he paraded around amused Loki, and he'd like to see how she interacted with the Allfather. Having the hammer-happy idiot around for backup was not a poor idea, either, if these precarious negotiations did not go as planned.

"Also, I am to notify you that he is bringing several...guests." Loki could hear the wince in the guard's voice towards the end, at the potentially-unwanted changes made to the invitation, but he merely smiled.

"Very well. Dismissed." Odin's voice sent the guard away, and Loki retrieved his own voice, turning back to the balcony's view and sighing contentedly into the wind. All was going as planned so far.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! ~Bon**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey guys. Floored at the response to this already. You're all amazing. **

**So, there's a fair amount of setting-up needed for what I wanna do here, bear with me please.  
**

**I have this hilarious joke with myself where I call Loki as Odin "Faux-din" and so as I write this, it's just reverberating in my mind...Anyone else do that? Just me?**

**Had to humor my Loki-Frigga-feels, too. Here we go. **

* * *

The former queen of Asgard's chambers had lain dormant and dusty for weeks, the only things missing those vital items needed for the funeral processions. Loki chose a mid-morning to enter, free of the illusion masking him as Odin, who had taken the rest of the day off and retired to his bed.

The Allfather's fatigue, while an illusion of sorts, was not a complete falsehood, which was a rarity for Loki – the burden of the throne was indeed a great one, and in the back of his mind, a tiny voice often whispered that he had bitten off far more than he could chew. But this was far different from a planet of imbecilic mortals - this mouthful could not just be spit out again.

Loki was not prepared for the effect this area of the palace would have on him; it was overwhelming to his senses, physically and emotionally. The rooms still smelled like Frigga's perfume, a concoction of her own making, based with rose oil from her garden, still lovingly maintained by a faithful servant. A wind chime she'd been fond of still swung out on the balcony to her dressing room, its lyrical chiming reaching him even past shuttered windows and doors. A chaise lounge he'd often curled up on, perusing magical tomes, was still leaned against the far wall, next to a shelf of said tomes. Her vanity table still displayed an array of pristine brushes and combs that she'd had since he was small. The sight of her favorite brush, which she'd draw through her hair while giving him magical tips, stopped him as he reached the center of the room, his blood both chilling with guilt and warming at the memories that surfaced.

His mother was still very much alive, at least within these walls. He half-expected her to sweep in at any moment, chiding him for not coming to see her more often. Now he was glad of the decree he'd issued months ago, that her rooms not be touched, though he had been loath to enter himself, until now.

He could not think on the approaching holiday without thinking of Frigga; Lithasblot was as much a celebration of the magic in the kingdom as it was a rejoicing for a successful harvest year, and it had always been a special time for Loki and his mother to bond on their own. Thor would plead boredom and while away the hours between feasts in the training courtyard, Odin often watching over the blonde god's progress, but Loki would race to his mother's rooms, eager to learn. Frigga had always upheld a promise to teach him a new spell herself each year at Lithasblot, even if she were ill, or an important delegation were in Asgard for meetings. And now, he felt an obligation to acknowledge her, in the only way he could, for there was no grave to visit, no tomb to adorn with fresh flowers or tokens.

A hand scrubbing over his face, Loki tiredly slumped onto the bench at his mother's vanity table. Idly, he straightened a bronze set of combs, before casting a brief glance at his reflection in the large mirror. The room was barely illuminated, only by a sole sconce on the wall he'd lit upon entering, but he dimly noted his face was even paler than usual, and his hair growing over-long. She'd have scolded him to get a trim, but it wasn't as though anyone saw him besides himself, these days. After all, he was dead too, wasn't he?

After twenty minutes of morbid existential contemplation, he rose, leaving behind Frigga's dressing table as he moved to a heavy curtain that separated the boudoir from a passage leading to Frigga's receiving chamber. The room where she'd died, because of him. He could blame Thor, blame Odin, blame bloody Jane Foster for stumbling across the Aether, but as he descended the stone steps into the spacious area, it only felt right to claim the fault as his own, for once. His childish need to cause a bit of trouble for Volstagg and Fandral, who had been on prisoner duty so often back then, had backfired in the worst possible way, and he could not undo that trickery with a bit more, as usual.

Rounding the large scrying pool, his booted footfalls resounding on the stone floor, Loki's eyes fell upon the spot where Frigga had fallen. The stone was still marked with his mother's blood. No scrubbing had been able to get it out, an everlasting testament to his grievous mistake. A fist clenched at his side, leather creaking with the strain.

Suddenly, a prickling at the edge of his senses alerted him to someone stepping within the bounds of the ward around Odin's chambers. He nodded at the room, but out of respect, farewell, or as an indication he would return, Loki did not know. He simply blinked from the room with a waved hand and a glimmer of green light, ready to berate whoever dared disturb the Allfather.

He arrived in Odin's quarters just in time to plaster the old man's visage across his own, and swing open the doors with a frown. "Yes?"

"Allfather, Thor and his guests have arrived."

The oaf was early, for one of the first times in his long life. Damn.

* * *

Her suitcase was packed, her purse was loaded with comfort foods in case roasted boar with the fur and tusks intact didn't sit well with her stomach, and her foot was jiggling as Darcy perched on the edge of the couch, waiting for Jane and Thor. It was early morning, the day after the Asgardian invitational duo had arrived, Jane insisting she needed time to get her affairs in order. And so the cramped condo had become even more so, Volstagg having commandeered a couch all to himself, and Fandral banished to an armchair, insinuating all the while that he'd share her bed at the slightest invitation. Darcy had never known this before, but one could overdose on being flirted with. He was incorrigible, and she had no doubt if she'd been a cardboard cutout he'd have behaved the same way.

She'd actually opted for a more demure look for the trip, tight black jeans paired with black boots, and a deep blue cardigan that flattered her eyes, over a white tank. But despite her dramatics and wardrobe indecision, Darcy was the first one packed and ready, and she was currently engaged in a staring contest with Volstagg. He was seated on the couch across from hers, plowing through a gallon of milk in one continuous swig, eyes still managing to crinkle in a grin at her as he chugged.

Jane had opened the fridge and welcomed Volstagg to it with a flourish earlier, seeing as everything inside would probably expire before they were back. The condo would be completely empty, since Ian and Erik had been recruited to join them, when they'd returned from the pharmacy, prescriptions for Erik freshly refilled. The older man had taken a lot of convincing on Jane and Darcy's parts; probably one hundred assurances that Loki was dead later, and after fifty declarations that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Erik had agreed to come. _If _he could bring medications, which Ian had been charged with stuffing into a suitcase all their own. He'd finally done it, and was in the kitchen, under orders to finish cleaning any dishes before they left.

The kid really deserved a paycheck, but, hell, if Darcy still didn't get one after nearly becoming fried chicken on one occasion and elf-fodder on another, he didn't either.

It had been awkward, to put it lightly, since the showdown with Malekith, and Darcy generally avoided being alone in the same room as the British intern. Kissing someone out of gratitude stemming from facing death right in the chops did _not _count as an investment in a serious relationship, or so she maintained. Even if she'd done it a couple of times. Besides, she wanted to keep her options open; she was in _London_, for goodness' sake, and posher accents than his were bountiful everywhere she looked. She was a sucker for an accent.

Like Fandral's, who was now reclined gracefully in his armchair, head propped on a gauntleted hand, perusing VH1. He'd taken a liking to Kim Kardashian that Darcy was _certain _wasn't healthy, and she made a note to put some sort of Asgardian-child-block-thing on the channels when she could. Thor tended to stick to the food network, or the soap opera channel. The otherworldly swashbuckler had not relinquished the remote control since she'd proffered it an hour before, apologizing that there was no one to spar with or whatever he usually did for fun. That had earned a lascivious wink and chuckle, and an assurance he would pull her into the arena on Asgard. Then he'd promptly taken the remote, and the term ogling to new levels. The armchair was about five inches from the tv screen, now, as a fashion critic helpfully zoomed in on a picture of the Kardashian, shouting to the heavens that a certain pattern belonged on wallpaper and nothing else.

Volstagg finished the gallon of milk with a loud belch, and the plastic jug ended up on the floor, of course, but capped. And it couldn't shatter, so that was a plus.

Finally, Jane and Thor emerged from their shared bedroom, the Asgardian already back in his traditional armor, and Mjölnir in hand for probably the first time in six months. Jane had the typical traveler's stress etched all across her face, muttering about sunglasses as she started to scour the room, throwing cushions in every direction until Darcy helpfully pointed out the lenses in questions were already on her, pushed into her hairline. The astrophysicist had scowled, heaving a sigh and pulling a list out of her pocket to cross something off of it.

Erik Selvig meekly entered the room behind them, thankfully wearing pants, but looking distinctly unhappy and squinting at a label on a bottle he held. Though he'd tossed out all his medications during the Convergence, the thrill of having ended Malekith apparently wasn't enough to keep him off the things, and he now had a stamp card for the local pharmacy. A stamp card. For a pharmacy. Darcy was sure the fact that those were offered spoke volumes about London.

Darcy hopped up from her perch, moving to snatch the list from Jane and peruse it with brows furrowed. "Sunblock? Jane, I really don't think you- _batteries_? Really? No, nope. They probably don't even have power outlets. D'you have power outlets?" The question was aimed at Volstagg, who shrugged. Answer enough. The intern promptly tore the list into several pieces, shaking a finger at Jane. "You've got all you need! Lezgo lezgo!" Thor piped in with the assurance that three suitcases would likely suffice, and Jane nodded with another sigh.

It took some wrestling, and, on Fandral's part, groping, but Darcy managed to get the remote from him and turn the television off, _and _snatch a package of Oreos from Volstagg. She was certain there hadn't even been Oreos in the house in the first place.

At last they were all ready, and after some skeptical evaluations of the patio outside, it was deemed the space could last another Bifrost episode. Ian was literally quaking in his boots, staring at the intricate signature of the bifrost burned into their porch, while Jane was muttering darkly about the security deposit on the condo. Darcy nudged Ian, and he met her eyes reluctantly. "Intern, just think of it as a space train."

"A…Space train?" He repeated blankly, elbowing Selvig next to him. "Is it just a space train?" Erik just snorted, pulling out a vial of some cloudy liquid and taking a swig.

The intern raised the suitcase he held higher, cradling it to his chest as if it would protect him, and they all stepped onto the impromptu landing pad. Darcy was nearly hopping in place, she was so excited, and it took a gentle chiding from Volstagg to keep her still, warning her that moving could end up with half her body in Nifelheim or something.

_That _had stilled her. Thor, in a moment of adorable sheepishness, had then hesitantly called out for Heimdall to do his thing whenever he was ready. Darcy supposed he was out of practice with inter-realm traveling, but her thoughts were cut short when a brilliant tunnel of light shot down towards them. It engulfed the group with a blinding whiteness interlaced with all colors of the rainbow. There was a sucking sensation, like she was a grain of dirt being borne down upon by a vacuum, and then there was nothing under her feet.

Darcy wouldn't admit it later, but she may have screamed on the Bifrost, despite her bravado. Might have, just a bit. But it was definitely the vacuum of air that had dried out her throat and rendered her hoarse for the twenty minutes after landing, most definitely.

* * *

Landing was not as kind as "takeoff" had been; it felt like she'd been shoved out of an elevator that was stuck halfway between floors, and there was a long drop and sudden stop. She found herself kneeling clumsily, a golden boot in front of her face. She followed it upwards, her eyes met with only more golden armor, before they reached a dark face, out of which glowed brilliant amber eyes. This must be Heimdall.

"Hi there!" Darcy croaked, pretending she had not been dropped unceremoniously on the ground before this man, subtly brushing at the knees of her jeans as she rose. He courteously pretended not to notice, intoning a greeting in a soothing baritone. Looking around, she spotted the others, with the exception of the Asgardians and Thor, all in relatively similar disarray. Erik was picking up pill bottles that had fallen from his pocket, and Ian stood rubbing at his side, having fallen on top of his suitcase and completely winding himself.

Jane was already stumbling across the observatory, craning to see past the golden rafters and further into the cosmos. How typical. All she was missing were some binoculars, and a sign around her neck saying "TOURIST". She had the sunglasses, though, and Darcy grinned, before turning towards what seemed like the exit of the place.

She pointed both hands towards it. "Do we just…?" Fandral nodded with a smile, striding grandly past, her suitcases in tow. She could _not _complain about her self-assigned valet, for sure. Waving goodbye to Heimdall, who inclined his head graciously, Darcy pivoted on the spot, leaving the other Midgardians behind in her excitement and trying hard not to skip with joy as she set foot on the rainbow bridge for the first time.

There were _horses _waiting for them, shiny-coated things all lined up in a row. Darcy wasn't exactly sure how to ride, but she'd seen some stuff on Youtube…Still, she held back as Thor chose and mounted a horse easily, pulling Jane up in front of him, and even Erik and Ian mounted up, leaving Darcy clicking her tongue in contemplation of the one horse now remaining.

It was a tall, brown beast, with nice shiny golden reins that somehow were not enticing to climb up and grab, as it was shifting back and forth on its legs as if antsy. It took one of the guards who'd originally brought the horses, at Heimdall's request, to lift her up and into the saddle, by which time Darcy's eyes were squinted nearly shut in an extended wince. The bridge looked super long, like it would take a super long ride to get to the end of it and how was she going to stay on a magical alien horse that long-

And then they were off, Fandral and Volstagg's horses leading the way and somehow cueing hers to move. All of the luggage had vanished, and Darcy had no clue what that was about, but she was clinging to anything buckled to the horse that she could find. Thor and Jane rode abreast of her, Jane smirking at Darcy's death grip on the horse, but Thor looked pensive, eyeing Darcy's mount.

"What is it?" Darcy managed, over the pounding of hooves on the bridge.

"I recognize that horse," Thor explained, sadness pervading his loud tones. "The beast was a favorite of my brother's. Picky when it came to riders, I recall."

The intern's nose scrunched up as she looked from Thor to the horse and back again. "This is…Loki's horse?" Thor just shrugged, urging on his own horse. Darcy's gaze swiveled back to the dark mane in front of her. "Yikes." She wasn't sure how to feel about riding the mount of choice of a psycho mass-murderer.

But she wasn't thrown from her seat, nor did the horse do anything remotely threatening on the ride across the bridge and to the palace. Its gait was smooth and soothing, in fact, and she could kind of understand a preference. When she dismounted, Darcy was actually strangely comfortable with the horse, even straining to reach its nose to give it a pat before the guards led it off again. Only then did the horse start to prance nervously from side to side, trying to shrug off the guidance of the guard holding its reins.

Darcy nearly tripped over her own feet, craning to admire the ivy-covered archway they entered the palace. It was amazing, everything gilded in gold and sunlight and _coolness_. Fumbling in the pockets of her coat, she was dismayed to find she'd stuck her phone and camera in her luggage. Then again, Asgard could be like ghosts and paranormal things – maybe it would show up all wonky on film. She'd have to test that out.

Noticing a side archway, Darcy stepped towards it, spotting a lush, green garden beyond it. But a pair of guards hastily barred her way, complete with crossed spears, explaining it was the Queen's private gardens, and none were allowed in unless by express command of the Allfather. Bummed, Darcy frowned, but turned away to scamper after Jane and Thor, wondering how she could get the old stickler to sign a permission slip for her.

* * *

The throne hall was a masterpiece in itself, marble pillars casting impressive shadows that lent an intimidating air to the chambers, which culminated in a tall set of steps leading to the dais. The throne itself looked like the average throne Darcy had seen in period pieces on tv – a little more spacious, perhaps, but basically a big chair with sturdy armrests. It was currently occupied, but she couldn't make out any details of the king's form, until they'd traversed the massive breadth of the room as a group.

Up close, she wasn't sure what to make of Odin. Or at least, as close as the peasants got; the steps leading to him seemed to go on forever, a distinct separation between king and denizen. Of course. The royal dude himself looked like any old, grizzled man she'd pass by on the streets, but her eyes flicked uncomfortably over the golden eye patch welded together with his helmet. Somehow, she felt there were still two eyes looking at her, and it was a creepy feeling.

Odin was dressed in fancy robes and a heavy fur mantle over them, an impressive scepter clenched in one hand. He, however, looked anything but impressed at their arrival. "My son," he acknowledged, voice quiet but somehow loud at the same time, nodding at Thor and apparently oblivious to the fact anyone else was there. Behind Darcy, Volstagg and Fandral had retreated to stand respectfully at the sidelines.

"Father," Thor returned, kneeling on one knee at the base of the steps. Darcy glanced around furtively, noticing everyone else awkwardly imitating him.

"_Darcy_." Jane hissed from her crouched position.

Darcy turned her head, looking down at her friend. "What? He's not _my _king," she hissed back, still standing. Jane could defer to the cranky old otherworldly dude all she wanted, but Darcy didn't see the need to swear fealty when she was here for two days of partying and that was it. Jane blanched, looking at something behind Darcy and straight back down again, and the intern froze as something prickled at the back of her neck.

Inching her head up and back to the front of the throne room, Darcy drew in a deep breath as she noticed Odin's eyes on her. She did look really painfully obvious, standing while the rest knelt. Why were they kneeling so long? Why was this a big deal? Was she gonna get her head chopped off before she'd had her first swig of Asgardian mead? Was she protected under the flag of ambassadorial immunity?

No one's eyes were on the Allfather except her, and so no one but her saw the creepy half-smirk he gave, in approval of her lack of kneeling or something, it seemed. It lasted less than a second, and then he was barking for them to rise. He said something else, gave some supercilious speech of greeting, and then they were dismissed. It took Jane jabbing Darcy with an elbow to get her moving, lost in her thoughts as she was. That grin was eerily familiar, she recognized it, but she'd never met Odin. She was probably in dire need of some sleep, that was all, she thought, blinking furiously and turning to follow Jane out of the throne room. Just before she exited, she tossed a glance back over her shoulder. Odin was gone from the throne, but she still felt watched.

* * *

**Thanks, as always, for reading! ~Bon**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hi guys. Life is crazy, apologies for late (in my mind at least) chapter. The plot thickens, though. Ish. Also, I love animals so apparently this is going to be a thing, Darcy bonding with anything and everything feathered, furred, or otherwise wild.**

**Could everyone maybe cross their fingers I land comic con tickets this Saturday, pleaseee? **

**Also, really appreciate all the reviews. I take them all into consideration for later chapters. Someone suggested Darcy'd be the first to learn who "Odin" is - I think you'll find I'm trying to skirt around quite a predictable development like that, in a weird way. Onward.**

* * *

Morosely munching a granola bar, Darcy was staring out the ornate archway that passed as a windowsill on Asgard. The room she was sharing with Jane was richly furnished, the silver drapes alone looking like they'd cost the same as the condo's rent, but Darcy had barely noticed so far. She was annoyed with herself that she still felt so bothered by the reception with Odin, and it wasn't making her great company. That was likely why Jane had basically ordered her to take a nap, while she and her seven-foot hunk of arm candy strolled across the palace grounds romantically or something. In any case, she hadn't seen her boss in over an hour.

Crunching the last mouthful of her bar, since she was wary of the silver platter of fruit on a side table, at least until Jane tried a piece, she looked around for a trashcan. Seeing none, she tiptoed over to the nightstand, furtively shoving the crackling wrapper into its depths, and turning just in time to see Ian move into the doorway.

"Darcy," he was mumbling, eyes on the camera he was flipping in his hands, "I think your camera ended up in my luggage."

"That doesn't make sense, Intern, I zippered it into the front compartment of my suitcase myself," Darcy returned, brows crinkling as she moved to take the offending device from him. Maybe the idiot just wanted an excuse to catch her alone and give the fancy beds a go or something. Ew. "It was like, _in _in your suitcase?" She asked, examining her camera.

Ian nodded and shrugged, thankfully already pivoting to head back to his own chambers, a little ways down the hall. "Technology can be mischievous!" He waved a hand back at her and grabbed a shiny pear as he passed the table by the doorway. Darcy's head shot up at his wording, a frown flicking across her face. She had no time to contemplate the thought hanging at the edge of her mind, though, because Sif appeared to re-fill the doorway, looking less than pleased she was charged with errand duty.

"Mort- Lady Darcy, you're to come with me for a tour of the palace," Sif ground out, an outright eye-roll the only thing missing from her reluctance. "That is, if you feel up to it. The Allfather insists you feel at ease in his realm."

Darcy smiled widely, trying to throw off the female warrior. She'd met Sif earlier, one of a stream of hurried introductions that had happened as their little group had meandered through the corridors in search of the guest wing. Darcy's conclusion had been that Sif needed to get laid, or something to stab. Maybe both at the same time? She clearly needed some sort of _thing _to be doing, but Darcy supposed if she wandered around wearing armor always, she'd want to commit badassery all the time too. "Uh, gimme a second…"

Sif nodded, moving to flatten her back against the corridor just outside the door while Darcy got ready. Shoving the camera inside her now-trash-designated nightstand drawer, Darcy grabbed a light scarf, flinging it around her neck and running a brush through her hair. Then she paused, opting to retrieve the camera and check its power level. It was fully charged, the memory card nearly completely clear, and calling to her to be used. Time to get something to give her the facebook feed of all facebook feeds. Darting out into the hall, she gestured grandly for Sif to lead the way, somehow not expecting any sort of grand historical explanations on this tour.

When the warrior huffed a sigh and heaved herself from the wall, armor glinting and clinking, Darcy was already snapping pictures of the corridor and artwork on the stone walls.

* * *

It had been surprisingly lenient of him, the Allfather, to let a slight to his honor pass, but Loki did not want to press the issue of a single mere mortal disregarding general etiquette, and risk exposing himself. After all, the Muspels and Jötuns did little more than salute or nod casually at him, too, and the girl hardly looked to have ever been in the presence of otherworldly royalty. No, instead he opted to win that round by unsettling the girl, which he could tell had worked, despite his little concession to her bravery. She had looked downright spooked, trailing after the Foster woman as they left the throne room. Fear was always such a delicious achievement.

Having been thoroughly roused from his chambers for the day, Loki decided to wander the palace grounds, finding Sif and Hogun supervising the training of some new guards.

"Sif!" He barked, pleased when the woman turned to him, executing a perfect kneeling salute. "I have a task for you."

"Anything, Allfather," she said, nodding expectantly.

"I need you to give Thor's companions a tour of the palace, so they are aware where their presence is allowed and such," Odin's gravelly tones commanded. "The Foster – Lady Jane will no doubt accompany Thor, but I fear the other may be slightly more independent, the Lady Darcy. The boy may join as well. Please let me know if any of their party have any needs or concerns." The last bit translated to "find a servant". He nodded, swiveling and heading towards greener pastures, the meticulously-groomed hedges of the palace gardens. He felt rather than saw Sif's disappointment, hiding a grin as he swept along.

He'd arranged for all the cursory guest accommodations – they had suites, the finest refreshments Asgard had to offer had already been sent up, and they would be assigned servants hours before the introductory feast tonight. The Lewis woman looked hardly capable of dressing herself even in mortal rags, but she admittedly had assets that, hopefully, some servant would show off to advantage tonight. Anything to disrupt the boredom incurred by attending feasts as royalty…In truth, they'd been much better when he'd been just a disregarded prince, able to come and go as he pleased, with whom he pleased. He cut that thought off as soon as it crossed his mind. He had work to do.

Drawing a breath sharply, Loki forced composure as the sunlit corridor suddenly chilled, signaling the approach of Frost Giants. He was in no mood to banter pleasantly with "royal" dignitaries from that barren land of ice and snow. Darting a glance around and spotting no one, he used speed the true Odin did not possess to flip himself over a nearby railing, concealing himself behind a pillar as a pair of the monsters passed, deep in conversation in their own tongue. While he would never admit it, he felt frustratingly comfortable physically when Frost Giants neared, their cold auras not bothering him in the slightest. This had worked in his favor when he had conspired with Laufey, but now it only served to distance him further from others in Asgard; hallways emptied when the blueish creatures approached, dignitaries and servants alike rubbing their arms and buttoning jackets for warmth as they ducked aside. And his mental approach was an entirely different story; he had to resist the urge to dagger any of the things when they came near him. But diplomacy, he chided himself. Diplomacy.

Letting out a breath and feeling himself visibly relax once they were out of sight, Loki let go of the pillar, dropping down to the ground level of the palace and striding quickly along a garden path. He'd been rattled by one thing after another today, his mother's rooms, the mortal girl's obstinacy, and now, frost giants wandering his halls like they owned the place. It was all part of the plan, but sometimes, even he hated his plans. Case in point, those bloody Chitauri…

A bell clanged somewhere, the sound rolling out across the grounds as it signaled the change of guard for the dungeons. Odin's face grinned at that, knowing he owed a pass through those cellblocks just to make sure all was well. Some night this week, he'd slip down there and see just how well the prisoners of Asgard were faring while celebrations raged above their heads. He owed himself a moment or two of gloating, after all.

* * *

"This is delicious, 'ave you tried one?" Ian spoke through a mouthful of pear as he strode alongside her, and Darcy was just _waiting _for the moment when a spatter of pear juice ended up on Sif's pristine armor. The British intern of the American intern had joined them moments after Sif had led Darcy down the hall, claiming boredom and that Erik was napping. In truth, the Brit, who was drooling at the warrior marching in front of him whenever his mouth wasn't occupied with the fruit, looked like he'd just come along in hopes of a hands-on tour of _Sif_. He'd grown far too arrogant since crushing a couple of evil elves with a car, in Darcy's opinion.

"No, because even though pears are my _favorite_, they appear to be disappearing as fast as the servants refill them!" Her tone was petulant as she shot him a sullen sidelong glance, snapping a random picture of Ian as he mowwed the helpless fruit. He just shrugged, grinning around another bite.

Then again, she'd have preferred a tour by one of the boys, so she couldn't fault Ian too much. As they rounded a corner, she snapped a picture of a statue of some woman clad in long robes. She'd probably never know who was which statue and what Asgardian artist had done each painting, but it was interesting, nevertheless. The woman looked a little familiar, with a long braid and amazingly detailed, determined expression, a sword clenched in her hand. Darcy shrugged, snapping a picture from another angle. The statue was super shiny, as if freshly hewn, and as she skirted around it, she noted an inscription on the base that, disappointingly, she couldn't read. She hurried to catch up with Sif, whose monotone was making it difficult to discern insults from background information of Asgard from weather observations.

They were on the second floor of the palace, as far as she could tell, and as they traversed a bright corridor only half-roofed, she edged towards the side that openly displayed the ground-level. Catching sight of a raven circling lowly, she leaned out, snapping a couple pictures, interested in where the bird was going.

Her grin dropped and she frowned as the bird spiraled out of the camera's view, and she frantically tried to track it with the lens. Finally, its descent halted behind a hedge, and she pouted, disappointed, only for it to reappear on the shoulder of none other than Odin. She froze, hand automatically clenching down on the shutter button, and as if on cue, the king looked up in her direction. Much to her shame, Darcy squeaked in shame, flinging herself back from the railing and smacking straight into Ian, chomping the last bites of his pear.

"See a ghost?" He joked, craning over the stone railing to see what had startled her. "Oy, it's the king again! Do I salute?" He tried a half-hearted tick of the hand at temple level, then shrugged and skittered after Sif, who was glaring at both of them.

"Oh, don't bother, mortal," she snapped, waving a hand airily. "I think the tour is complete, anyways." Then Sif booked it down a side corridor with all the grace bred into her, leaving a wide-eyed Darcy running a hand through her hair and Ian glancing around for another fruit platter.

"Guess it wasn't poisonous?" Darcy finally questioned, raising a brow at Ian, who shook his head, splaying his hands out from his body and waggling them to show he was fine.

"Great. I'm ready for a servant to drop grapes into my mouth, then," Darcy muttered, brushing past him and shoving the camera back into her pocket. Then she stopped, pivoting on her heel and raising a finger in the air. If only those pears were fortune cookies. She'd already taken to calling the place Hogwarts, swearing staircases and things moved. "Where were our rooms again?"

* * *

Loki was deep in thought as he walked to the aviary, stroking the glossy feathers of Muninn, the raven perched upon his shoulder. Huginn, the bird's partner, had not taken well to the game of musical chairs: royalty edition, and stubbornly refused to obey his commands when let loose, and so was kept caged most of the time. Loki had fed Muninn often as a boy, and the omniscient bird's trust was a welcome reimbursement in these times.

Relinquishing the raven to its preferred perch high within the tower that functioned as his private aviary, Loki briefly removed the Odin illusion, inhaling deeply of the fresh mountain air that blew in through the miniature archways serving as windows. A chuckle escaped his lips as he recalled the sight of the mortal, screeching and ducking out of his sight as if she were _trying_ to be obvious. Her antics were just ridiculous enough to provide some meager entertainment, and again, he found himself briefly wondering what she'd appear in tonight. Perhaps the next few days would not be so bad, after all.

A caw above his head sent green eyes upward, only to spot Huginn, making disgruntled noises as his beady eyes locked on Loki. As the staring contest continued, the bird cocked his head, like he was silently judging Loki's thoughts. The trickster soon caved, grimacing at the bird and heading for the door as the appearance of Odin washed back over him.

As soon as his boot crossed the threshold, a scream resounded across the grounds. Lovely. Taking a deep breath and hesitating only long enough to snap his fingers to summon Muninn, who flitted past him in a flurry of ebony wings, he followed the bird as it led him to the source.

* * *

"Here, intern, you look like you could use something to do. Upload all of this." Darcy tossed her camera at Ian, who caught it despite double-fisting two pears, and moved to her suitcase to find something comfortable to change into. While there was no intergalactic Wifi, it seemed, her laptop had battery for the time being, and she could perform basic functions like transferring files and uploading her camera's memory card contents. Naturally, Ian was gonna do it all.

She was down to a black cami and jeans, with her top, socks, and boots now decorating a bronze-gilded chair, when Ian murmured something around a mouthful of pear. "What was that, Intern?"

He managed another snuffling noise, eyes wide as he gestured at the screen in front of him. Darcy whisked her thick hair behind her ears, her brows cinching as she moved to stare at it alongside him.

"What the hell is that? Is my lens smudged? Nothing else looks weird, what-" Darcy huffed, moving the mouse over one of the pictures of Odin. Creepy as he was, Darcy hella wanted a commemorative picture of the dude. The problem was, none of them had turned out. She now had a full photo gallery of Asgard's archways, hallway tapestries, banister carvings, even some funky gargoyle-like carvings that just chilled out at seemingly-random spots on the roofs. However, she swore she'd taken at least three photos of Odin earlier.

_But _where Odin had stood in the garden was some sort of blurry, dark figure. She was positive he'd had on silvery robes and his whole pale-fabric kingly ensemble, but that was _so _not what she was seeing right now. Squinting at the picture, she quickly flipped to some others. Sif showed up clearly, so did servants, a couple warriors she'd passed – okay, they all didn't even require an ounce of photoshopping, with perfect figures and complexions – but maybe somehow Odin just…defied the rules of photography.

Ian relinquished his chair to her, sidling over to the newly-replenished fruit platter a servant had brought in a minute ago with a smile and bow. He promptly fumbled through the assortment, coming up with yet another pear.

"You're gonna turn into one," Darcy mumbled, clicking and dragging the mouse all over her screen and then hitting an elaborate combination of keys. "Oh. My _God_." Literally. She clapped a hand to her cheek, pushing her glasses higher on her nose to make sure she was seeing clearly. She'd zoomed in on the image of Odin, or what she'd thought was him, and tried to clarify the photo, and she was probably imagining all of this, because it sure as hell looked like Loki was standing there. The crazed Norman Bates of the Asgardian royal family looked to be standing on _exactly _the same spot as Odin. Black armor, black hair, even the bits of bronze on his forearms – whoa, they looked buff and legit – his entire look was just _there._ But, he was dead, Jane and Thor had said.

"Oh my god Oh my god what did I say about _ghosts?!_" Darcy shrieked, standing so quickly her chair knocked over. "Are there hauntings here? And are there Asgardian ghostbusters to call? Someone _has _to have noticed something like this before me, right?" There was no response. "How does an intergalatically-famous leader of nine or however-many realms just, go about his day and not _notice _this-" Turning to Ian, Darcy's words stuck in her throat. "Intern?" Ian was making a strange gurgling noise deep in his throat, a confused expression on his face as he stared at the pear in his hand. As they both watched, the image of a pear seemed to dissolve, leaving some sort of tar-black, thorny-skinned apple in his hand.

Ian's hand went slack and the thing disappeared altogether as he fell to his knees and he started to twitch. Darcy screamed, dashing across the room and falling to her knees in front of him. "Can you hear me? Ian?" His eyes met hers before rolling back into his head, foam starting to creep from the side of his mouth. She darted to the bedside table, snatching up a fancy goblet of water and bringing it his lips, but Ian seemed unable to take it. Darcy let out a whimpering sound she didn't even recognize as hers, staggering to the doorway and grabbing onto the stone to keep her upright, all thoughts of her discovery gone from her head.

"_Help!" _She shrieked, head swiveling to look up and down the corridors, which seemed deserted. "_Thor! Jane!" _

She turned back into the room, falling back into a crouch and gathering Ian into her arms. "Please don't die on me intern, this is not my department, I, aghh…" Ian's eyes were now closed, his breathing labored, though the convulsions had stopped. He looked more in a coma than in the midst of a seizure, though she wasn't sure which was worse.

A noise at the doorway made her look up, and Darcy screamed anew as something black came hurtling at her, descending upon her shoulder in a cacophony of humanistic snorts and caws. Her shoulders hunched, a hand protectively in front of her face, Darcy's eyes peeked open after a minute of no harm coming to her. A heavy weight was on her shoulder, and as her eyes moved left, she spotted large, black, gnarled talons clenched onto her bare shoulder, somehow painlessly. She whimpered again, taking in the sight of the whole massive black bird that had found her and hoping its beak wasn't going to find a home in her eye socket.

But no, it gave a weird cooing sound, arching its head against hers for a moment. Did birds purr? She was an Asgardian Doctor Doolittle, it seemed, and swallowed thickly after another glance at Ian and then back to the raven.

"Do you mean help?" She offered cautiously, and instead a voice from the doorway answered her. "Muninn will not harm you. What is the matter?" None other than Asgard's king had answered her scream for help. She'd have preferred Asgardian paramedics. Standing abruptly, Darcy backed up, the raven wobbling on her shoulder, eyes darting to her computer and then down to Ian, half-hidden by the edge of her bed. "Something happened to my friend. I think it was the fruit, it…changed…" She pointed a limp finger at the dish by the door, and Odin's eye darted to the offensive serveware and back to her, before resting on the intern at her feet.

"Eir!" He barked, and the room seemed to pulse with the abrupt command. Probably, there'd been some magic infused in the word, because a tall, slender brunette woman glided into the room ten seconds later. Wearing a long, silver gown and with an authoritative air, she must have been a healer because she took in the sight of Ian with one glance and was running her hands across his face and chest a moment later.

Tendrils of orange light crept from her fingertips and seemed to sink into Ian's prostrate form, and the woman frowned deeply, rising and turning towards the doorway as two women appeared with some sort of floating stretcher. "My Lord, it is some sort of potent poison. We will take him to the healing chambers, but I am not sure how much can be done. He sleeps peacefully enough, in some sort of deep sleep induced by the poison." With a flick of her wrist, Ian was transferred to the magical gurney thing, and Darcy was biting her lip, a hand halfheartedly rising in protest as they whisked him away.

That left Darcy, still inching bit by bit towards her open laptop. Odin and the healer, Eir, were conversing in hurried tones at her doorway, and she took the chance to lunge forward and slam her laptop closed. When she turned back, the woman was gone and Odin's sole eye was glaring at her. Barefoot, wearing only a skimpy black camisole and jeans, and the massive bird on her shoulder, she was again facing Odin. She poked a finger in the bird's direction without looking at it, to see if it would budge, but the raven only let out a petulant caw, adjusting itself against the bones of her shoulder. She winced, but it was sort of comforting, like a mini black feathered wingman.

Odin's gauntleted hand glinted in the light streaming in through her window as he pointed at the edge of the bed. "Sit, Miss…Lewis. You have some explaining to do."

* * *

**Thanks for reading! ~Bon**


	4. Chapter 4

**HI GUYS. School ended today, and I rewarded myself with wrapping up chapter four here. ALSO, I LANDED COMIC CON TICKETS SO THERE'S THAT. HAPPY BON EQUALS UPDATES I GUESS.**

**Love the response. Hilariously enough, Ian's situation is NOT indeed the crime to be solved. There's much mroe to come.**

**I've taken some liberties with Muspels and their appearance, and also their wardrobes, as well as that of Jotuns. I'm researching furiously alongside every paragraph I write, not even kidding, but apologies if I run with something that seems way off.**

**Inadvertently during the course of research for this chapter, I discovered Costco sells caskets. You learn something everyday. **

**I also pay a little homage to the concept I dealt with in "All That's Left Are Your Bones", in this chapter.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

Jane Foster stood at the side of the channel that led to Asgard's ocean, if that was what it truly was, hugging herself for warmth despite the heavy satin cloak draped around her thin shoulders. She wasn't sure if it was the temperature or the somber task she was observing that lent the chill, as she watched as Thor laid one last flower onto a small barge tied at the water's edge. Stepping back, his head bowed, the god of thunder retrieved a blazing torch from a guard respectfully waiting several paces behind him, nodding his thanks and approaching the small floating shrine again.

With a tenderness that tugged at Jane's heart to watch, he touched the flames to the pyre he'd commandeered. When they started to spread successfully, he dropped the bundle of kindling into the midst of the collection of books, relics, personal effects, and floral offerings that she'd helped him collect all afternoon.

Thor untied the raft and seemed to mutter a final prayer as it started to drift out to sea, finally stepping back and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She caught the glint of a single tear rolling down his bearded cheek in the sunlight before he wiped it away briskly. Jane burrowed into him, blinking furiously as the small conflagration defied their sorrow, burning merrily even as it started to succumb to the tide.

She would _not _cry for Loki. She would _not_…She was crying for Loki. Turning fully into Thor, she wrapped her arms around his middle, sad more for him, she believed, than for the misguided soul they were seeing off. Thor regretted deeply the lack of ceremony he'd paid to Loki's death, and she knew it, suggesting as they left the throne room earlier that they right the situation promptly so he could enjoy the festival.

Several minutes passed in contented silence, before an approaching clanking noise roused Jane, who pried her face from Thor's chest in time to see a palace guard racing towards them. "My Lord," he declared breathlessly, sketching a hasty bow, "You must come quickly. Lady Eir sent me to tell you there has been an…incident with one of your companions, and that you should attend Lady Darcy." His grave tone and hasty retreat in the direction he'd come from allowed no questions, but Thor shot a worried glance at Jane.

"Darcy," the scientist muttered, swiping a hand through her hair. "Always into trouble."

Thor offered his hand, raising the other into the air. A moment later Mjölnir came swinging around the nearest building, and they were off, back to the palace.

* * *

His first thought was, regrettably, about her attire, or lack thereof. His mother would never have been caught dead – he winced at his mental phrasing – in the sort of ensemble that evidently passed as apparel for this mortal girl. Muninn had finally left her shoulder, descending instead upon the back of a chair across the room as if to release the pressure upon her to explain. That left her scantily-clad torso wide open, and a he stared at her, seated mutely on the edge of the bed, she started to fidget, finally folding her arms across her ample chest to occupy her visibly shaking hands. Unfortunately, it only served to draw more attention to those assets, and Loki was glad his true expression was invisible as he considered what the true Odin would think of such a spectacle.

Starting to pace the guest quarters, Gungnir thumping lightly across the carpet, he kept quiet, awaiting an explanation of what exactly had happened. The girl – Darcy – withdrew a hand from across her ribs and started winding a long lock of chocolate-colored hair around her hair, eyes flitting back and forth as if replaying the scene to better word it. Finally, she started to speak.

"Ian was in here helping me with something," she said slowly, occupied as her mind was with recollection, "And he kept eating the fruit. He'd been eating it all day, all of the pears, which are my favorite-" Loki made a mental note, Odin's eye narrowing, "but he was fine until that last one, I think."

She abruptly rose, apparently unable to keep still, and darted to a side table, upon which was draped the sweater she'd been wearing earlier. She pulled it on and pulled it closed across her chest, retreating across the room to point vaguely in the direction of her computer. It didn't appear she wished to be in close proximity to him. "I was working on something when he made this choking noise and I turned, and he was eating another pear, only it wasn't a pear. I saw it change, I think he did too, it sort of melted? Into- into something different. Have you read Snow White?" She asked abruptly, halting his pacing as he turned to her.

"I am aware of the folk tales of Midgard, yes," he admitted gruffly, eyes focused on the wall across the room. It actually was not a lie; he'd had a _lot_ of time to read in during his incarceration, and stories with a maniacal villain who practiced magic were always of interest, somehow. His gaze flicked to the door of her chambers when a loud knocking interrupted their interview.

He struck Gungnir against the floor once, and the door opened to admit a startled guard who nearly fell into the room, hand still raised in knocking. "My Liege, Lady Eir-" Odin cut the guard off, swinging the door shut with a wave of his hand before waving for the guard to continue. This could not be overheard, the rumors would spread like wildfire. And Muspel and Jötun emissaries were housed everywhere along this corridor…

"Lady Eir has sent me. Am I to sound the alarm? She mentioned discretion, but a royal guest…" The guard cut off at Odin's withering look, straightening his stance and awaiting the royal command.

"I will attend to this matter personally. Raise no alarm. Please inform Lady Eir and beg her aides' silence upon the issue as well. I will consult her shortly. That will be all." The guard bowed, leaving and closing the heavy door behind him, and Loki turned back to Darcy, expression expectant.

"It, uh," she waved her hands, seeking a metaphor as she resumed her tale. "It dissolved into this sinister apple-looking thing, and then it disappeared into thin air altogether. I don't know anything else, he was choking and _foaming_ all over me!"

She rubbed at her arms as if the memory chilled her, and he pivoted on the spot to leave, pretending not to notice. "Remain here for the time being. I will have a specially-prepared meal brought for you soon, and you will of course attend the Lithasblot opening proceedings tonight." He paused to gauge any resistance, but her gaze was unfocused, aimed somewhere above and behind him. His head cocked to the side and he stopped talking, staring at her. What an odd mortal.

She seemed to feel his stare, shaking her head and blinking in his direction. He continued, "A servant will aid you in preparing for the festival. In the meantime, do not touch any more fruit, Lady Darcy." Then he was gone, the raven following after one last unnerving glance of its too-intelligent stare. She shivered when the door banged shut.

Odin's form strode angrily down a hallway, servants carrying platters of food and guests debating outfits for tonight dodging left and right to stay out of his path. Eir would have more information soon, and he had to stem any gossip before it spread. He'd be damned if all his plans were for naught, if all the work he had done to gather the realms would be spoiled because Thor had to bring some extra guests along on a field trip. The fact remained, however, that this seemed like a targeted blow; someone had been aiming to incapacitate, likely kill, one of the women in that room, likely the one he'd interrogated. Someone in Asgard, likely one of the guests he himself had brought here. Interesting; a change in housing could be required, as all of the "foreign" dignitaries were in that same corridor. However…

The festival _would _go on, mortal casualties or not.

* * *

Darcy gustily blew a sigh of relief into the emptiness of her room, sinking down onto her bed and staring into space. That was weird. She'd been given some sort of good-cop routine by the big bad Odin. At least, she thought that's what it had been, and shuddered to think what one under Odin's suspicion would be subjected to. That creepy _eye._

Suddenly, a pounding sounded at the door, making Darcy nearly jump out of her skin. As it was, she lurched sideways off the bed with a squawk, backing towards the wall as the heavy door clattered open. Seconds later, meaty hands had a hold of her shoulders, pulling her upright. "Darcy!" Thor's voice boomed down at her, drowning out Jane's own cry. "We were told something had happened, but they did not explain-"

"Whoa, whoa, big guy, I need those," Darcy soothed, squirming out of his grip and rubbing at one of her shoulders. "And keep it down, wouldja? Your Dad told me to keep this quiet…" Jane was next, throwing her small form at Darcy and locking her in a vice grip, eliciting another yelp from the intern.

"I'm okay, Boss Lady, I'm okay," Darcy murmured, unsure if she was speaking the words to assure them, or herself. Jane finally pulled back, and Darcy crawled back onto the bed to begin her tale anew. When she'd finished, Jane was several shades paler, her face cradled in her hands. "We should never have come," the scientist moaned, suddenly parting her hands to peer at Darcy through a net of fingers. "Wait, has anyone checked on Erik?!"

A frantic dash to the doorway ensued, the three of them piling out into the hallway to pound at Erik's door. After a moment, it swung open with a creak, and Erik's puzzled face stared out at them. The trio looked each way down the hallway, in complete synchronization, before shoving their way past him and into the room.

"Oh, Erik, you're okay," Jane muttered with relief, giving him a quick hug. His puzzled expression only deepened, as Erik looked over her head at Darcy and Thor. "What's going on?"

"You lost a, uh, roommate," Darcy started, trying for a casually flippant tone, but worry still colored her words. "Ian…Something happened, and he's in the, er, Asgardian hospital." She gave as bland a summary as she could; Erik couldn't endure much alarm, but he had to be wary. As she spoke, his expression grew gloomier than she'd ever seen. He wouldn't be the only one regretting coming, though.

"We should check on Ian," Jane murmured a few moments later, biting her lower lip. "But the welcome I received last time I was in those rooms…" Thor stretched a hand out to her, which she took. "We will go together." With a nod, they left the room, leaving Darcy shifting her weight from one foot to the other as she quirked her lip to the side in thought. Erik had slumped back onto his bed, head in his hands, elbows on his knees. When she muttered that she'd be across the hall, there was hardly any reaction, and Darcy felt another pang of guilt for bringing the poor guy here as she slipped back across the hallway to her own room.

As she reached for the door, something flickered at the corner of her vision. She looked up, muffling a gasp as she spotted what had to be the "Muspels" Fandral had explained were attending. Fire Giants, they were humanoid in appearance, though much taller, and appeared aflame at all times. Two were entering the chamber next to hers, the door spaced several paces down the hallway, but they paused before entering, flaming faces turning in her direction. It was unsettling, the way their coal-black eyes seemed to rest on her, one's slash of a mouth grinning in some sort of greeting. Darcy swallowed, nodded solemnly, and promptly flung herself back into her room. She had yet to meet the Frost Giants, but was sure they'd be no more pleasant.

Frost giants…Hadn't Thor said Loki had been revealed as one, around the time that massive destructive robot of death had come to Puente Antiguo? Loki... Darcy moved to the ornate dressing table in the room, standing with her arms braced against it, thinking hard. Eyes squinting at nothing in particular, she tried to recall everything she'd ever heard or learned of Loki. It came down to newscasts of New York, and the fairy tale book Erik had brought home back in Puente. She was a voracious reader, though, when she wasn't scrolling through her iPod or making spreadsheets of scientific data. Swiveling on the spot, she marched for the door, determined to find the library here, hoping she could read whatever alphabet there was here. She didn't have a PhD in Norse runes, but maybe she could solve at least one of the mysteries she'd stumbled across in Asgard.

As she reached for the door handle, a knock sounded. Her hand fell back to her side as Darcy stared at the door, afraid it would explode or be knocked down. It'd been that sort of day. Instead, a timid, lightly-accented voice asked through the door, "Lady Darcy? I am a palace servant, sent to attend you…"

Darcy clicked her tongue in thought, before stepping forward to open the door and wave the girl in. She was a few inches shorter than Darcy, and much slighter. Darcy Lewis could take her if she had to.

"I am Finna, My Lady," the girl offered quietly, cutting a curtsy that Darcy nearly cut off midway through. No one was bowing to her on her watch.

"Hi Finna," she offered cautiously, wary of any more curtsies. "Please call me Darcy. And you don't have to curtsy to me. I'm no queen."

The sprite-like brunette bobbed her head, which was topped with shiny curls tamed into a long braid, and darted to the dressing table. "The seamstress is on her way with several dress options for you, L- Darcy," she explained, already rummaging through drawers, retrieving fancy combs and brushes that Darcy hadn't even known were there.

Darcy had all but forgotten about the massive party they were here for, and was shocked when another knock at the door revealed who must have been the seamstress, a busty older blonde woman toting an armful of lush fabrics. She introduced herself as Adela and set right to measuring Darcy top to bottom with some strand of silk ribbon, though it appeared blank, no increments labeled or anything on it. She clucked her tongue approvingly at Darcy's bosom measurement, and patted her on the shoulder before turning back to her mound of material.

"This, I think," she said, turning around with a swath of deep teal, holding it to Darcy. The color was amazing, something Darcy had somehow never seen on any clothes on Earth, actually, a lovely blend of blue and green, with more of the latter. Adela started wrapping it around Darcy's arms, her waist, unraveling it down to her ankles, making some sort of mental notes as she did so. "One shoulder," she muttered to herself, holding a piece of the fabric diagonally across Darcy's chest. "And in at the waist…"

The intern was just blinking. She'd had a long day of intergalactic transportation, weird run-ins with intergalactic royalty, ghostly shenanigans, and her intern had been poisoned on top of it all. Now she was being measured for a gown like she was a bridesmaid in any old dress shop back home. And she was pretty sure the feast thing was in a couple hours, so how a dress would be completely made up by then was beyond her and her mortal capabilities, but Adela didn't seem the slightest bit fazed. Magic, probably.

A tug at the back of her head had Darcy whining, reaching a hand backwards to claw at Finna, who was yanking at her hair with a carved comb. The little servant girl actually swatted away Darcy's fingers, shushing her and jabbing one last pin into her hair. Adela had moved away to mutter over fabric trimmings, and Finna took the chance to turn Darcy around and display her hair in the full-length mirror.

Darcy gasped. She didn't even look like herself, chocolate locks restrained in a sloppy side braid, bangs loosely framing her face. Whoa. Darcy Lewis didn't really do elegant, but the person in the mirror had it going _on_.

"This is just practice, of course, me cobbling something together-" Finna started uncertainly, fidgeting at Darcy's silence, but the intern raised a hand to stop her. Turning to the girl, she squealed loudly, clasping her hands together. "I love it!" The servant smiled weakly and tried to curtsy again, but Darcy yanked her into an awkward hug instead.

When Finna had extricated herself from the exuberant mortal, Adela was nodding to herself, and gathering up all her materials again. "I will bring you your dress when it is time to ready yourself," she assured Darcy, swirling out the door in a whirlwind of fabrics and colors. Darcy could almost forget everything else that had happened; it was like getting ready for prom with royalty, and everything was free. Amazing.

Finna quickly let Darcy's hair fall loose again, directing her to the adjoining bathing chambers where she could remove the grime of the day's events. Recommending she take a nap, Finna darted out the doorway, pausing only to retrieve the platter of fruit that had lain there, untouched since Ian's incident. Darcy shuddered, swearing she'd sworn off fruit forever. Unless it was wine.

Wandering into the bath area, Darcy found a bathtub the size of a swimming pool back home, already full of steaming, fragrant, wholly inviting water. She had no idea if the plumbing in Asgard was psychic or if Finna had activated something or what, but it was a pleasant surprise to not have to crank a lever and wait for London's water system to lazily kick in. Quickly flinging off her clothes, the sight of which seemed offensive amid such finery as the materials Adela had shown her, Darcy slipped into the water, hoping Jane wouldn't barge straight in when she returned.

* * *

Loki was fervently wishing Odin himself could endure the pounding headache behind the trickster's eyes at this moment; perhaps he'd have to seek a spell that would do such a thing. For the time being, he was overseeing the Healing Rooms, secreted in a vacant one to think.

The boy was indeed in some sort of deep sleep, but there was no telling, even by their Asgardian diagnostic magic, what the poison was intended to do, and how this sleep could affect him if he remained in such a state. His blood had been filtered by some elaborate device Eir was fond of, and the only poison remaining was any that had been absorbed into his system, hopefully a minimal amount, since he'd been treated so quickly.

Thanks to the Lewis girl's screams.

Not many had been told an envoy of mortals was accompanying Thor, as there had been no need – Midgard was not represented in the council meetings – but they had nevertheless trod all through the palace upon their arrival, and had also subsequently been wandering. Anyone could have seen them, nearly anyone could have had an opportunity to slip some spell work in among the refreshments the servants had brought. It could _be _one of the servants. But what purpose would that serve? A strike at Thor? An aim at Asgard's reputation, a weak mortal struck down mysteriously in the midst of such negotiations?

Knuckling his brow, Loki's eyes clenched shut, his breathing heavy as he tried to subdue the migraine swamping his senses. Thor's rumbling tones were audible through the wall, as he spoke to a healer in the hallway about Ian's condition. The oaf could not offer an ounce of help, yet he insisted upon full recounting of the incident, annoying the healers until one pulled him aside to tell him what they knew. It wasn't much, and the god was not pleased. Well, neither was Odin, and so after a few more words barked in the corridor, he swung around, hefting Gungnir and contemplating hitting Thor across the head with it.

Everyone quieted at the sight of the Allfather, which he was now accustomed to. Even Thor, which was a relief, except quieting him meant facing him, which was wearying in other ways, now. Quelling familiar phrases was something he was struggling with, since he'd had minimal contact with Thor since taking the throne. He wasn't proud of it, but the urge to call the thunder god "brother" was strong.

"My son," Odin called quietly. "What is the matter?"

Thor rushed to him. "Father, this man is my friend, a close mortal acquaintance." Everyone was Thor's friend though, the buffoon was like a dog, all wagging tail and grins and willingness to please. "An attack upon him cannot go ignored."

There was that rashness resurfacing again, the sort that had gotten them nearly killed in Jötunheim, the sort that had indirectly shown Loki he was not who everyone claimed he was. Shaking off the thought, he settled a grave stare on Thor. "Indeed. There shall be an investigation, though discrete. I trust you will understand why, with so many...others, between our walls and under our roofs. Everything is being done to care for the boy as well as can be. You must leave it at that, Thor." He started down the corridor, passing the open room where Jane Foster stood frowning down at the unconscious intern she was responsible for. "I expect you all at the Lithasblot inaugural feast tonight." He nodded, then carried on, leaving Thor lingering at the doorway.

He would not defy Odin's wishes again, not when the Allfather had shown such leniency in allowing him to depart for Midgard indefinitely. Jane looked up from the bedside of her intern's intern, nodding to show she'd heard Odin. "I guess we go get ready for a party?" She shot another glance at the unconscious man. "Whoever did this will probably be there." She spoke the words strongly, assuring herself, and Thor caught her drift as she marched over to him, grabbing his hand. As they left, their whispers started to assemble a plan.

* * *

The feast had not begun, but still, the halls were fully decorated, food was being laid out, and overeager guests were already at the wine and mead, desperate to get a few solid tankards in before having to share with the crowd.

Whole pigs garnished every few feet of every table, seasoned dishes of Asgardian fowl dotted the tabletops in between, and caskets of wine covered the remaining space on each tablecloth. Everything was laid out banquet style, one high table representing Odin and the other leaders' positions, the rest of them laid out parallel, in two distinct rows. Serving staff, clad in gold Asgardian uniforms, darted to and fro, hefting platters and juggling goblets and balancing decanters of spiced wine.

Finally, everything was in place, servants retreating to the sidelines to rest until refills and replenishments were needed, and the flood of arrivals began.

Odin was positioned at the entryway, nodding, bowing at the waist, and giving otherwise respectful greetings to the various species, dignitaries, and guests arriving by the handful. He'd be here all night, if Thor and his mortals didn't hurry, Loki thought, noting their group was one of the last to show up.

The Muspels were always disconcerting to see, the way their flaming forms seemed likely to torch anything they came into contact with. And yet, not a flame escaped their bodies unless they wished it, he had come to understand; even the trails of fire that formed a sort of hair for the females swished against chair backs and hanging tapestries without harm. The ones attending tonight had some sort of ceremonial robes on, dark kimono-like garments that draped around them and blocked from sight some of the flames that danced across their skin.

The Jötuns were in slightly more formal attire as well, their typical loincloth-meets-kilt clothing abandoned for fur-lined tunics that covered their slate-blue torsos. Surprisingly, the females that had accompanied them, who had thus far shown no interest in council meetings, had attended as well, their shining dark hair a new sight among the males' bare, ridged scalps. The Jötuns stomped past Odin with scarcely a look in his direction, and Loki's eye-roll was strong enough that his vision dotted for a moment.

At last, Thor appeared, in full regalia, armor replaced with a fitted leather tunic, though his crimson cape adorned his shoulders as always. Jane Foster was looking admirable, he had to admit, her slight form swathed in layers of tulle and chiffon that gave her a fairy-like air. She'd make a fine Asgardian, if it came to that. They swept past him, tailed by the doctor, Selvig, who didn't look pleased, but seemed better than when they'd arrived.

He was clad in some sort of loose robe, similar to what Odin himself wore, and the hints Thor had given him about the addled scientist seemed to have paid off, the loose garment proving to be to the mortal man's liking. Loki almost felt regret at the thought of what he'd diminished the man to; he did commend his intelligence and presence, after all, though he could not do so outright. The guards were nearly ready to close the banquet hall doors, when a thud and subsequent curse sounded down the corridor, signaling Darcy Lewis' presence.

When she appeared, hobbling into sight after struggling with the heeled boots she wore, he nearly did a double take. The change from Midgardian style had proved a vast improvement upon the mortal, whom he had already found regrettably appealing.

A deep teal satin looked to have been painted upon her curves, so perfect was the fit. The fabric wrapped around her marvelously, a golden sash cinching her slender waist and accentuating the glare of her hips. The material trailed down to whisper around her ankles, while a slash of fabric cut across her chest, unfortunately covering most of her neckline, but tightly outlining it nonetheless. One pale shoulder was bared, her hair swept from it to cascade down across the other in a plait laced with flowers he recognized from the gardens outside. The effect upon him was profound, but Loki forced decorum, keeping Odin's face expressionless as she stumbled up to the doorway, fumbling with her skirts.

"Allow me," he offered quietly, raising a hand to her. She accepted after a moment's hesitation, her eyes drilling into him as if she were looking for something. Her hand was chilled and shaking slightly as he led her inside the hall, nodding for the guards to close the doors. Mortals could certainly clean up well.

* * *

**For those curious, Darcy's hair and dress inspirations shall be posted on my tumblr because pretty. Thanks for reading ~Bon**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hi guys! I am soo sorry for the lag in updates, my spring break has been quite a bit more hectic than I planned. **

**So, I've taken some weird liberties with a concept in this chapter that I've always debated over: Loki's illusions. We see them dissolve under contact, we see them able to tangibly grip Gungir in the end scene of TDW; I've gone back and forth in my fics as to whether or not his projections are tangible, and I offer a sort of final word on the matter here, you'll see. **

**MASSIVE thanks to the lovely Yavannies, who supplied the term for Asgard's, well, GUARDS.  
**

**Big scene in this chapter. As always, let me know thoughts, theories, everything! Enjoy!**

* * *

Heimdall stood in Asgard's observatory, staring into the cosmos but not quite seeing it at the moment, his gaze dulled by heavy thoughts. He was no stranger to omission from the guest lists of Asgardian celebrations, his duties were far too important; but he wondered if he might attend this evening's festivities anyways, since such events could pass under his vigilance as those that occurred scant hours before.

He had spotted nothing leading up to the poisoning of the mortal, but his view of Asgard had seemed clouded all morning, doubtless some magic at work to conceal the harm intended for Thor's company. Frustration was now a familiar emotion to the observer, despite nothing but serenity ever crossing his visage; ever since Thor's first stunted coronation, the most significant forces Asgard had faced had slipped his watch, time and time again. It was a wonder he had not been replaced, but Odin's understanding and wisdom were extensive. Lately, though, it had not seemed so.

His vision had cleared just in time to witness what happened to the mortal boy, the girl's screams reverberating in his mind, but he could do nothing but man his post as he watched Odin himself respond to the incident. Interesting. And Heimdall had not been consulted, no inquiries made into what he may have seen or not; perhaps Odin took the lack of warning as confirmation there was nothing more the watchman could tell him.

Shifting on his feet, Heimdall let out a rare sigh, inaudible to all but the silent walls of the observatory, the Bifrost shimmering away with no care for his worries. Something was afoot, again, and he would be damned if he simply watched more catastrophic events unfold. Eyes narrowing as they scanned again the cosmos that lay before his gaze, Heimdall tightened his grip on the _Uru _sword that had served him faithfully for so many millennia, determined not to even blink as he focused on the Lithasblot banquet.

* * *

The walk to her designated place at a table in the feasting hall seemed much, much longer than it was in actuality. Finna had told her that Odin had arranged the seating at the High Table a long time ago for this particular feast, and so Thor's party had been hastily moved around to sit at the table closest to it. Casting a furtive glance at her escort, Darcy wished she'd been seated at any, _any _of the further away tables they passed, her steps heavy with discomfort as she navigated the flagstone flooring.

Odin felt _weird._ He had placed her hand upon his armored forearm, and she was all to glad to relinquish direct contact with his hand. Chilly it was, but that was not the bulk of her unease – it felt like she was touching the hood of a car that was running, while simultaneously her hand awaited a shock of static electricity or something. His hand felt fuzzy to her touch, like her own was asleep, but it definitely wasn't. And the armor, something composed of layered plates of shaped metal, did not feel anything like it seemed it should.

She was also painfully conscious of the drastic reduction in volume of the feast when she entered on Odin's arm, their entrance heralded by the banging shut of the hall doors. Creepy Muspels gazes, the inquisitive crimson eyes of Jotuns, raised eyebrows of Asgardians – they were all aimed at her, and she suppressed a shiver with some difficulty. Maybe this wouldn't be so fun.

Heaving a sigh of relief when he deposited her into a rigid-backed wooden chair, Darcy nodded and smiled in thanks, but he didn't even notice, already headed for the High Table. Oookay then. Looking back around her own table, she blushed under the gazes of the Warriors Three and Sif, the latter of whom looked not at all happy to be seated with the "children", as she'd muttered under her breath with a glare in Darcy's direction, who returned it.

"You look great!" Jane piped up, her own dislike of the female warrior visible in her obvious efforts to not look towards that side of the table. The tiny astrophysicist was luckily seated on Darcy's left, with Fandral on her other side, and Jane gave her a quick one-armed hug. Thor gave her one of his goofball grins across the table, mouth already full of _something _– she was immediately reminded of the picture she'd taken of him in Izzy's diner. Simpler times.

"So, escorted by the Allfather himself! Quite an honor, m'dear," Volstagg boomed through a mouthful of turkey leg – at least, she hoped it was turkey leg . "I was just the last one in, I think he wanted to get started," Darcy mumbled evasively, rubbing her fingers together and frowning at the memory of the weird sensation of touching Odin.

She fidgeted with a napkin, unsure of table etiquette in this realm. Jane shielded her mouth with a slanted hand as she furtively whispered to treat the feast like she was dining with a sty of pigs. Volstagg's ensuing whine of dismay confirmed this, as a chunk of whatever poultry it was vanished into the depths of his beard. He mumbled something about using it as snack later, and Darcy was finally comfortable again. Fandral sent her a winning smile, filling her goblet to the brim with some sort of wine, and she broke into a wide grin herself after a deep draught, reaching for a platter of something that looked chickenesque. So long as the booze kept flowing, she'd be okay.

* * *

Darcy had been seated for about ten minutes before a loud banging noise silenced the feasting crowds, and Odin rose in his place at the High table.

"Neighbors, allies, my friends," he began, voice strong enough to reach every corner of the large hall. "I welcome you officially to Asgard with this celebration of Lithasblot, a holiday I have always held in the highest regard. As you have seen, my m-" Odin paused to clear his throat, shifting Gungnir from one hand to the other. "My queen, Frigga, is no longer among us, but she was very nearly the patron goddess of this holiday. Her magical skills were revered far and wide, and she adored this very celebration, spending many a night planning it. And so, first, I ask you all to raise a glass with me, this eve –" Odin raised an ornate goblet, as did many around the hall, but the Muspels and Jötuns shot many a side glance at each other before complying. Darcy noticed both sorts of giants had oversized goblets to accommodate their larger grips. "—in memoriam of Frigga, fallen Queen of Asgard." The crowd mirrored his phrasing, and the Allfather took a quick swig with the rest of them.

His grip slipped a bit when he replaced his goblet upon the banquet table, but his stance was steadily formal as he straightened, continuing his speech. "Let us think of these festivities as the unofficial commencement of a new alliance between all of our realms – Asgard, Vanaheim, Muspelheim, Jötunheim, even Midgard." Here he shot a succinct nod in Jane and Darcy's direction, though their realm was not included in the negotiations. "May we all enjoy peace and prosperity, thanks in part to the graces of both sorcery and natural magicks. I hope you all pass a pleasant time here; Asgard is honored to have such guests in attendance." With another nod, Odin sat, flicking a hand in a gesture for servers to resume their activities.

An hour and a half later, Darcy was drunk, and knew it. Unsteadily waving off an offer from Fandral to refill her goblet again, the intern rose, even more unsteadily, clinging to the heavy back of her chair, a goblet of what she'd been told was water in one hand. "I need air," she mouthed at Jane, whose own rosy cheeks and loud laughter hinted at equal intoxication. The scientist said something that sounded suspiciously like "Okay, have a happy new year!" and toppled from her chair into the lap of Volstagg next to her.

Further down, Volstagg's wife scowled, and Jane made an apologetic squeal before a laughing Thor retrieved her to sit on his own lap, where he could keep her upright. Jane didn't get out much, to say the least, and otherworldly booze was putting her through the embarrassment ringer at an accelerated pace. Maybe the alcohol would be kind and she wouldn't remember a thing.

Darcy left at that point, knowing she and Jane would, either way, deeply regret in the morning having challenged Thor to a mead-swilling contest. She'd finished maybe a tankard and a half, and more than half a dozen littered his place at the table. He wasn't even drunk in the _slightest. _Damn space men.

Staggering between two of the lengthy tables in what she hoped was the direction of the exit, Darcy had to beg her sluggish reflexes to help her side-step a fistfight that spilled into the aisle way, and then again to lurch out of the way of a trio of servers bringing another complete roast pig to a table. Finally, she was at the heavy wooden doors, staring dumbly at the glossy oak blocking her way as if they'd open with her mind's urging.

"Lady Darcy," one of the guards started with a respectful nod, though she was sure she deserved no less title than "white girl wasted" at the moment. "Do you require assistance?"

She stared at the door a moment longer, trying to comprehend his words, before clearing her throat and flapping a hand at the doors. "I need some air, can you let me out?" It came out slightly more towards "S'air, lemmout?" but the guards seemed to understand, each jumping forward to grip a hefty handle and let her pass.

The high-ceilinged hall was quiet and cool, both of which were needed. She slumped onto a fancy bench placed a few paces down the corridor, angling her lips to blow her bangs off her face. She tried not to quaff the water, having heard somewhere that it would make her drunk anew. She wasn't sure if that was a scientifically proven fact, but who knew where Asgardian booze was concerned.

Twenty minutes later, she felt a little clearer, and stood up carefully. Darcy Lewis was done partying for the time being, she thought, deciding to take a stroll down the darkened corridor for more air, because it was always a great idea to wander about dark hallways when your intern had been poisoned in your room that morning. Shrugging off her worries with the assistance of her lingering intoxication, Darcy left her empty goblet on the bench, hiking up her skirts with one hand and following the corridor with a hand trailing along the wall. All at once, a weird fluttering sound reached her, and she froze, eyes clamping shut, afraid she'd be dragged back to the banquet to face Odin's Wrath of Table Manners or something like that.

Instead, a rough caw reached her, and as she turned, squinting one eye open, she spotted the raven from earlier. Monkey was its name, or something like that. Her other eye opened, and there was a minute-long staring contest as she wondered what the bird was doing, perched on the shoulder of a nearby statue with its head cocked to the side.

"M…Monkey?" Darcy ventured, and with another quiet caw, the bird launched from its foothold, only to land on another statue further down the hall. She shot another surreptitious glance around her, then followed, watching as the raven repeated itself, winding down another corridor as if it were leading her somewhere. With a shrug, Darcy murmured aloud that she could do worse than trusting a seemingly pretty smart bird, and tiptoed after it.

Why there were no guards about was beyond her, the dim lighting of scarce torches making it hard enough to see her way. She passed the completely concealed feet and legs of a prone, uniformed body, shoved behind another decorative statue.

The raven, for its part, was becoming increasingly agitated, its caws becoming sharper and more insistent. Darcy's alcohol-hazed thoughts finally decided she would move faster with more light, and she spent a minute hopping up and down against the wall, trying to retrieve a lit torch from its sconce. Finally it came loose, and she held it aloft with one hand and her skirts in the other, feeling ridiculously like a heroine in a gothic novel from Jane Austen's time.

At last, Darcy's drunken stumbling landed her at a marble-trimmed doorway, the wood painted a nice forest green shade. Some Asgardian runes labeled the door, which she of course couldn't read, but the bird was pecking at the door, so she plowed onward, shoving against it with all her weight. It gave way easily, sending her off-balance with all the strength she'd given it, and Darcy nearly tripped over her hem and fell to the stone flooring. Grimacing, she dropped her skirts, waving a finger at the bird. "Tell no one."

Then she looked around, a brow raising as she wondered why she'd been led here. It was obviously a library, the room oval-shaped and lined with bookshelves to the vaulted ceiling perhaps forty feet above her. Highly-polished wheeled ladders were placed sporadically on rails that encompassed the entire length of the shelving, but she wondered who used them; Asgardians could probably all magic down the books they wanted. The ceiling itself was…weird, reminding her of the science center she'd visited when she was a kid; it looked like a cross between the night sky and space itself, pinpricks of light accompanied by strange swirls of all colors of the rainbow.

The raven cawed again, perched on one of the ladders and jabbing its beak furiously at a particular shelf. Frowning, Darcy set the torch in an empty wall-holder and wandered over, noting the shelf was nearly chock-full of rune-labeled tomes, but a couple were somehow in the latin alphabet she was used to reading English in. They all started with "m", and the raven was pecking at one labeled 'magicks'.

"How original," Darcy muttered, more curious than ever as she reached for the book. As she did so, a thud echoed into the room from down the corridor outside, and she paused, looking towards the door. Seeing and hearing nothing more, she grabbed the book, following the raven to the nearest table and plopping the tome down.

"I think I'm still drunk. Why else would I be following birds and making literature choices based upon their insight," she muttered, watching the raven pry at the cover of the book. What followed was even weirder, as she watched it _flip pages _until it came to a particular one titled 'illusionary techniques'. Why the damn book was in English, she had no clue, half-believing she was imagining or dreaming all of this, passed out on the bench down the hall in reality.

The raven cawed again, right in her ear, and Darcy winced as she bent to skim the page its talons had pinned open. Blah blah blah, deceptive to the eyes and ears but not other senses, blah blah blah – wait, what?

"_Illusionary magick is one of the most difficult, its effects far-reaching and completely disarming to opponents when used correctly. When physical touch, taste, and revelatory scents are avoided, detection is nearly impossible, the user able to convey through sight and sound an exact replica of the desired subject. However, well-practiced and powerful users have been documented as able to manipulate even those three discerning senses at times, but at great energy expense," _she read aloud, her words slowing as she reached the end. Quirking a brow at the raven, Darcy slumped back in the ornate chair she'd flopped into, blowing her bangs from her face again.

"What did I just read?" She drummed her fingers on the table, definitely able to feel sobriety returning, and with it, a heavy sense of dread.

And then, a crashing noise in the hallway sent the raven aloft in a burst of black, and Darcy scooted back in her chair, standing and staring at the open library door.

* * *

It was a few moments after Darcy quitted the hall that a haggard and panting guard rushed into the banquet hall, dashing up to the High table and bending to Odin's ear. The Allfather's expression grew pensive, as did Loki's beneath it, and he nodded curtly, flicking a hand to indicate the guard should leave him. Then he rose with a little difficulty, sighing before magically enhancing his tone to encompass the whole room again.

"My friends, I have a small matter to attend to, but please, refill your cups and enjoy the splendor of the Asgardian kitchens' skills," he announced, grip tightening on Gungnir. "I shall return shortly." Thor was frowning from his place below, bending to whisper into Jane's ear, who was still perched on his lap. Her drunkenness was only half a show, as she hicupped and nodded back at him, brow furrowing as she scanned the tables and revelers around them.

Odin was striding briskly towards the hall doors, and when he'd slipped outside, Jane and Thor moved to follow, halted when the guards' spears crossed to form a metal 'x' that barred their way.

"Let us pass," Thor rumbled at them, looking from one to the other.

"Apologies, my lord, but the Allfather has conveyed that absolutely no one is to leave the hall until he has returned. He assured us he sealed the doors magically himself," murmured one apologetically. Thor and Jane exchanged a look of alarm, but there was nothing to be done, and they returned to their table, Jane still staggering, only half-intentionally.

"What do you think is going on?" She hissed in a whisper, once they were seated again.

"I do not know, but it is troubling," Thor whispered back, lips pressing to her hair as his eyes too scanned the hall. "For father to have left the hall in the midst of the Lithasblot feast is very strange."

"Maybe we should pay our respects to some of the guests," Jane murmured, words still slurring, and Thor grinned into her hair in agreement. Standing, Jane tried to pat her hair back into some semblance of tameness, and they headed for the Jötun delegation's seats.

* * *

The guard was apparently the only one of his kind outside the banquet hall who was not incapacitated at the moment, if he was to be believed. According to the panting Einherjar, all of the palace sentries had been felled, this one escaping just in time to alert Odin. He could not explain what had done it, the being was masked and cloaked in black, but it had demanded the Allfather's presence or the festival guests would be next.

And so Loki strode through deserted wings of the palace, having placed a silencing barrier spell upon the banquet hall and surrounding rooms. He'd expected some sort of attempt, but he was not gifted with prescience as his mother had been. He had laid the trap and waited to respond as needed.

What he had not expected was an expertly-planned attack by a being much more powerful than any mere Muspel or Jötun. As he rounded the corner of the passage leading towards the library and his private study, a magical blast from behind sent him crashing to the floor, hissing in pain. Gungnir clattered from his grip to land several paces further away, and when he tried to magically summon it, the spell failed.

"What-" he grunted, flipping himself over and taking a deep breath to try and maintain the illusion of Odin's face. Fighting at the same time would be a challenge, particularly if – he tried a blast of power from his own hands, and his magic fizzled and died before it left his fingertips – this enemy could disable offensive magical abilities. His illusion seemed to be holding for the moment, though, and he was glad of it.

He couldn't even see who he was aiming at, darkened as the palace was, the light of the few remaining torches somehow diffused by the enemy magic in the air. Loki swiped a dagger from his boot, having no care for how the action appeared with the illusion in place, flipping it between his fingers in preparation to hurl it. At last, a being appeared, striding down the hall and looking carefree as its black cloak billowed in a phantom wind.

Loki's lip curled beneath Odin's face. He adored dramatics as much as the next villain, but really. Odin's eye narrowed as his posture straightened, hands at his sides.

"Who are you?" He demanded gruffly, feeling like a stereotype but curious to see what the reaction would be.

"Your end, Allfather. Your allotted reign ended long ago." The words were cold, raspy like dried leaves blowing across stone, and the figure pulled out its own wickedly-curved blade, the sharp edge looking like ebony glass in the lighting. Perhaps it was; glass was a better channel for magic than steel.

"Your monologues require polishing, as do your plans," Odin spat. "You think to destroy me in my own palace? You think I shall be overcome so easily?"

"Your magic is already disabled, as are the bulk of your guards," the grating words continued, and Loki tried to remember where he'd heard the voice before. "Die quietly, and I shall have no cause to take your son as well, Odin."

The words may have struck home to the true Allfather, but Loki shrugged nonchalantly, instead meeting his foe head-on as they charged, brandishing their own knife. He tried his magic again, feeling a tiny spark cooperate with the hand holding his dagger. Odin's magic was known, millennia old as his abilities and intimidating presence were, but Loki's was ever-adapting, his skills undergoing constant refinement.

The cloaked fiend had the momentum, though, and the pair crashed into the stone flooring with a resounding boom, torches rattling in their sconces upon the walls. The creature was of a height scarcely more than that of the average Midgardian male, but Loki knew not to trust in something so simple as form to identify them. He himself was proof that even obvious creatures like Frost Giants could appear in all shapes and sizes.

Grunting, he slashed out with his dagger, catching some of the being's cloak with his blade. But even as he did, he sacrificed balance, and he was pinned to the floor anew, a gauntled hand around his neck, the metal digging deep into his throat. He scarcely heard the muttered Midgardian curses that sounded off to the side, preceding something hurtling into his foe and knocking them to the side.

* * *

There was a brawl going on in the hallway, Darcy noted distantly, having crept to the door of the library and peering out. The raven descended upon her shoulder, making upset little noises, and she hesitantly reached up to stroke the glossy dark feathers brushing against her cheek. Her eyes widened as she realized Odin was fighting some black-cloaked figure, both slashing with daggers and for some reason, Odin not using any crazy magic spells like she'd expect. Eyes dropping, she noticed his funky spear-scepter thing on the floor near her boots, and she fidgeted, unsure of what she was seeing or what to do.

Immediately, she swore off Asgardian alcohol forever, then relinquished the oath in favor of drinking heavily to forget this experience. Where were the guards? Where was everyone else, was this some sort of honor duel that she shouldn't be witnessing? Then she caught part of the cloaked figure's words, and realized it was some sort of assassination attempt.

"Darcy Lewis, Savior of Asgard and Partner of Strangely Humanoid Birds," she muttered, buoying her courage with thoughts of prospective new titles she'd be endowed with after saving the lord and master of the realm. Looking down at her evening attire, she stifled a snort of laughter at how ridiculous this would look. Then she promptly crouched to grab the spear, the raven lifting off from her shoulder into the air. Hopefully it understood her plan, but she swore aloud for the entire time it took to dash towards the fight, throwing herself onto the cloaked combatant and knocking herself breathless.

Hopefully she'd chosen the right team, she thought, quickly darting away from the scary being she was now associating with the Nazgul from the Lord of the Rings, and throwing the stupid frilly spear-thing at Odin. He caught it with no small measure of surprise in the small window of time he gained when Muninn the raven promptly dove at the enemy to keep it occupied.

There was no plan past getting the creep off of Odin's windpipe, Darcy acknowledged, backing against the wall as she watched the Nazgul bat away the raven and whirled towards her with a snarl.

"Why do I do these things?" She wondered aloud, edging sideways along the wall and wondering if she could make it to the library to lock herself in and sleep off the hangover and nightmare she was clearly imagining. Suddenly, there was a crackling noise, and the corridor seemed to brighten. Some sort of evil spell breaking? She continued her awkward progress, squeaking when she bumped painfully into another damn decorative statue. They sure were into commemorating themselves around these parts.

Odin and the Nazgul were at it again, circling each other, weird flashes of light now sparking as they collided. All of a sudden Odin cried out in pain, his left arm falling to his side as the Nazgul wrenched his blade from a gap in the armor over the Allfather's shoulder. A blast from the spear sent the black-clad figure backwards, but Odin was down to a kneeling position on one knee, breathing heavily.

Darcy looked for the Nazgul guy, but he'd disappeared into the shadows, and she shivered, deciding she'd rather stand near creepy, haunted Odin than be set upon alone in the dark. She started for him, when her eyes caught a blackness, darker than the shadows even, hurtling towards him from behind. He couldn't see and a scream of warning wouldn't help him know what to avoid, so she dove for Odin, tackling him to the side as the Nazgul lurched past, off-balance. The raven immediately set upon it, all harsh caws and raking talons, and then the cloaked figure was gone, for good, Darcy thought, because the air suddenly felt much clearer, echoing footfalls dying away.

Then she came to full awareness of her situation, and her position atop the Allfather of Asgard.

She started shaking uncontrollably as the passage she'd read came back to her, pointed out to her for whatever reason by the intelligent bird. Odin's plated armor resembled a metallic accordion, sort of, along his forearms, but that did not match with what she felt. She felt long, smooth metallic cuffs, their surface interrupted only by some sort of engraving. Her hand that lay on his chest felt not an armored breastplate, but a complicated weaving of material that felt a lot, and smelled a lot, like leather. Her other hand reached for his face in the moment before he reacted, her trembling fingers detecting a smooth, clean-shaven, angular jaw line where there should have been a grizzly beard.

She couldn't help it – she screamed, flinging herself backwards and in the process, tripping over her plentiful skirts. Ignoring a burning in her arm and scuttling backwards on her hands and feet like a crab, her hair in her eyes and her breath coming in ragged gasps, Darcy watched as Odin drew himself to his feet. But it wasn't Odin at all, she realized, as the air seemed to waver, like that above a hot asphalt surface, and the image of Thor's father seemed to ripple away, replaced by that of a dead man.

* * *

The mischief god's mind raced, evaluating memory spells and potions, even debating killing her outright and blaming it upon his would-be assassin. Something in him shied away from the last option, though, as he noted the freely-bleeding slash upon the trembling girl's arm, a token she'd received in defense of his own life. In response to something in his expression, the raven, Muninn, landed on the stone floor in front of the girl, who was attempting a crawling retreat, and cawed loudly in protest.

There were several silent moments, the tension in the air sliceable by a blade like the one he still held, the girl making scant progress down the corridor as she edged away. Neither spoke, green eyes appraising petrified blue as Loki sought a plan. But his quick mind was failing in the face of her fear; he knew by now it was not characteristic of her, having gathered much information from the servants who had attended her, and Volstagg and Fandral, who were close companions of her.

In the end, he offered no comfort, relying on the honed blade of his tongue to manage her.

"Do get off the ground. I enjoy my subordinates groveling at my feet immensely, it's true, but you rather resemble a wounded rabbit at the moment."

"And you're the – the fox, is that right?" The girl managed with as much sarcasm as she could manage, voice shaky, but her statement forced a harsh bark of unwilling laughter from his lips.

"The fox who, it seems, may owe the rabbit a small boon in thanks for its earlier actions," Loki admitted gruffly, sheathing his dagger and striding towards Darcy, who tried to quicken her crawling pace. He nevertheless reached her side in five long strides, fluidly crouching despite the blood still flowing from his own shoulder, and she halted. He raised a hand and she flinched, but he merely wrapped long fingers around her own bleeding arm, murmuring something that incited a flare of green light. She winced, but only for a moment, her eyes instead widening in wonder when his blood-smeared fingers retreated, leaving no trace of a wound, only splatters of crimson across her forearm. His other hand reached out and flicked her long locks, many of which had escaped her braid, behind her ears and out of her face, his fingers moving unconsciously, it seemed.

"Consider that repayment," he muttered shortly, rising to his full height and starting to pace.

"I'm still drunk, I'm still drunk," Darcy muttered aloud, her eyes fluttering back and forth, and he fervently hoped she would not faint. He was in no mood to deal with inconvenient mortal theatrics.

To her credit, she did not, finally regaining her feet and stumbling to the wall for support, plastering herself flat against it and taking several deep breaths.

"You're still alive," she managed after a moment, scanning him up and down, and did he detect some appreciation in that vibrant cerulean gaze? "Erik will be pissed," she murmured as an afterthought to herself.

"Quite." He bit off the word, miming her and leaning against the wall opposite her, raking his own eyes brazenly up and down her dress. That got a rise out of her, eyes narrowing as she huffed and folded her arms across her chest.

"Thor has no idea? Does _anybody_? I thought Odin was just being haunted…" Darcy's thoughts started spilling verbally, her eyes on the ceiling as she thought. "Wait, where is the real Odin? Did you kill him?"

"You need not be concerned with that," Loki replied coolly, launching from the wall and stalking towards her. Darcy tried to flatten herself further against the wall, eyes clenching shut against an assault, but he merely braced an arm against the wall above her head, his body effectively caging her in. "You, on the other hand, are quite a liability at the moment."

"Just do it. Wasn't looking forward to the thesis I had due a couple days after we got back anyways," Darcy ground out, eyes still closed. Loki blinked, clueless as to what the latter part of her statement referred to. "If I was preparing to kill you, why would I expend valuable magical energy on healing your wound?"

His logic clicked into the gears in her mind, and the intern's eyes flew open, her cheeks coloring slightly as she realized his proximity. "You're…gonna let me go?"

"As I said, you are a liability," Loki restated, not reassuring at all, his other hand rising to grip her chin firmly. "As soon as you leave my presence, you'll run to my idiot brother and his little scientist and reveal all. Your sort doesn't keep their mouths shut easily."

She paled again, afraid he was going to sew her lips shut or something. She _had _read a little further into the mythology than Jane had, after all. "What are you gonna do to me?"

Finally, he paced away from her, leather coat whipping around his boots with the movement, and Darcy breathed a sigh of relief at regaining ownership of her personal space. "Strike a deal, temporarily. You will not reveal my presence – and trust that I will _know _if you utter a word of this – and you will be allowed to leave with the others, unharmed."

Darcy wasn't stupid. Her brow quirked up as did her chin, tone defiant as she eyed Loki. "I'm sure that's not all."

"No. I propose an alliance. As it stands, I require your assistance." She wondered if he'd given himself an Asgardian hernia at that admittance, he gave such a painful grimace at his own words. She started winding the escaped tendrils of her hair around a finger, swallowing thickly as he started to talk.

* * *

**Thanks for reading! ~Bon**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi guys. Sorry it's been a while, received a review that killed my enthusiasm and now...I don't know. **

**I'm looking into posting some different MCU stories, I really loved Cap America 2, and I'm starting to feel like I've exhausted my tasertricks arsenal. Regardless, I'll finish this, probably sooner than planned.**

* * *

Jane wasn't sure which were more intimidating, the Muspels or the Jötuns. Both were freakishly tall when standing, making her wonder if she ought to be atop Thor's shoulders to greet them. As it was, she reached mid-thigh on the fire demons as they rose and bowed at the waist in deference to Thor, as he and Jane approached them.

"Greetings, Thunder," one Muspel offered, its voice crackling and popping like a real fire. This was apparently their term for Thor, as others echoed the name, and re-seated themselves with a gesture to two seats in their midst. They were unusually hospitable, if Thor's expression was any indicator, and Jane feigned straightening her skirts to make certain a dagger she'd been told to shove into her boot was still there. Not that it would do much against these monsters, whom she'd learned could only be felled by extreme cold or massive deluges of water. In fact, Thor had told her the Muspels and Jötuns despised each other so on an elemental basis – the extremes wherein each lived directly threatened the other, and avoidance was a high priority. And yet, they had all answered Odin's summons.

The fire demons were only the first on the list to be casually interviewed, and the feast was by now well underway. Jane poured herself another goblet of wine, telling herself she'd only sip this time, and let Thor steer the conversation.

"How are you enjoying your stay in Asgard, Surtur?" He asked politely, aiming his words at the leader of the Muspels, whose costume was slightly more elaborate, his flames burning slightly brighter somehow. The fire demon bowed his head in acknowledgement, and when he spoke, his voice was as strange as the others. "Many thanks for the Allfather's invitation; we have accomplished much thus far."

"Last time I visited Muspelheim, I noticed the hothouses you use were struggling," Thor observed lightly. "I hope Asgard is able to negotiate a trade agreement to your liking, and help keep your people content."

Surtur nodded gravely, flaming hands cradling his goblet as he seemed to stare into its depths. "There has been much difficulty due to the unrest in the realms," the fire demon chief conceded, finally raising his obsidian eyes to Thor's. "Perhaps the younger, wiser generations, led by those like yourself, will be the ones to finally bring about the peace and prosperity the Allfather speaks of." It was a curious statement, and Thor bowed his head in a bark of laughter, grinning back at Surtur. "My friend, I have no desires to lead anymore, and I am no diplomat; I merely consume the harvest and occasionally hit things!"

His words started a bout of laughter among the Muspels, and Jane shivered at the strange hissing noise.

"It is a shame our friend Ian is unable to enjoy this tonight," Thor said soberly when the laughs had abated. "He mightily enjoys food, as do I."

"Did he not come with you?" A random fire demoness inquired, digging into a chunk of meat.

"He's ill, we've been told," Jane finally chimed in, tearing at a piece of bread with her fingers and trying to glance around the table. Mysteries and subterfuge were not her thing, but the poor guy wasn't even on _payroll_. She had to do something to help.

For their part, the Muspels had very schooled expressions, but Surtur's movements were slightly jerkier as he poured from another flagon of wine. "A shame," he quietly replied. "Asgard's festivals are legend amongst all the realms."

He said no more, and the conversation soon died down, and Thor and Jane excused themselves, pleading obligations to greet the Jötuns. Surtur's fiery lip curled at that, and he bowed his head rather more curtly than before as they headed to the next long table.

The Jötuns were not dubbed the Frost Giants for no reason, Jane was soon thinking, for their manners, tone of voice, everything was icy and inhospitable. It was a wonder they came, she thought, unless it was not to fraternize. The blue creatures made no show of not rising to greet her and Thor, who pulled her to the side with a hurried whisper, suggesting she check in with the Vanites instead. Over his shoulder, she caught the spooky, crimson gaze of a Jötun, and quickly agreed to move ahead.

When Jane had moved away, Thor made no greetings beyond a cursory hello to the table. Instead, he moved to the shoulder of the Frost Giant who had taken Laufey's place, a massive male named Hagen. He actually carried a sword, unlike many of the others, to whom physical weapons were cumbersome and scarcely needed. It only added to his intimidating air, though, and Thor was cautious as he nodded to Hagen.

"I will keep this short," he murmured to the giant, whose head cocked in his direction, but who gave no other indication he was hearing Thor's words. "I will find who has harmed one in my company, and I will give no mercy, Hagen."

The giant's head slowly turned, liquid scarlet gaze narrowing on Thor. "What makes you think it will end with one?"

Thor hid his astonishment, reaching over to swipe a swig of Hagen's goblet. At least the frosty being occasionally spoke frankly. The thunder god slammed the now-empty goblet back onto the table, turning without another word to find Jane.

There were only a few who were aware of what had passed, and all were in Thor's confidence, except the healing staff, who were never to be doubted in their discretion; they swore on an enchanted contract when they were inducted into Lady Eir's ranks. The Frost Giants were not a well-endowed race in the area of intelligence, save perhaps, for his fallen brother, Loki, and Thor didn't believe them capable of hatching an elaborate attack using poison, much less to fell a mere mortal. It didn't fit.

* * *

"Muninn will henceforth accompany you anywhere you need to go," Loki's cold, clipped tones carried back to Darcy, who was following him through some sort of elongated secret passage through the palace. "It would not do to have my asset compromised by another bout of solo wanderlust."

"Asset?" She fairly screeched, anger rousing her from the stupor that shock and fear had left her in. "I'm not a house you just won during your Monopoly turn, buddy, and I'll thank you to call me Darcy. No, wait, _Lady Darcy _is how it is to you, _Sir_." She sneered at the last word, folding her arms petulantly across her chest as she struggled to navigate the stone passageway. She would never insist anyone else refer to her with the fancy schmancy title, but this prick was giving it his all to make her feel insignificant.

After a moment, her annoyance dissolved. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"You tell me, _Lady Darcy_," was the curt reply, and she made a nasty face at his back, fancying his lengthy strides sped up in response, making it even more difficult to keep up with the much-taller deity. He'd paused a moment earlier to heal his shoulder, and then led her straight into a honeycomb network of passages. She was probably being led somewhere to be killed, still, she was convinced.

The raven, Muninn, was settled again on her shoulder, wobbling with her stumbles, and the bird's weight was comforting in the face of Loki's presence. Drawing a deep breath, Darcy straightened her shoulders, coming to a stop in the tunnel. "I want some things explained."

"Your life has been spared, mortal girl." Loki slowed after a glance backwards revealed her halted progress, and a scowl crossed his face. Turning, he folded his arms across his chest and faced her in the near-darkness. "What position are you in to make demands?"

"Your bird likes me." That was all she said, one spontaneous sentence, and just stared at him, her bottom lip jutted out in what she likely thought was an adorable pout, designed to make him spill trade secrets.

"The bird you speak of is misguided," Loki muttered dryly. "He enjoys Odin's company, after all."

"Would that be why he led me to the library? To out your little charade? Where's your dad, really?" Darcy's brows rose, and she leaned to one side, putting a hand on her hip and squinting at Loki.

"He is _not _my-" Loki bit down on his words, reminiscent of a cell-bound conversation he'd had so long ago with his mother. "That is no ordinary bird, if your tiny mind has not noticed. I know not his motives for anything. Now, if you don't start moving, I'll leave you here to rot." He turned without another word and continued down the corridor.

Darcy resumed trudging along behind him, her mind still racing with questions. All she really knew was that someone was apparently after Odin – more specifically, the _throne_, from what they'd said – and that Loki wasn't dead, and had been pretending to be the ornery dude in question. It couldn't have been too hard, if the prickly exterior Loki had shown both as himself and as Odin was anything at all like the real Allfather. Maybe there was something to the like father, like son saying after all.

"So, that speech," she started, lilting her tone so it sounded childlike and hopefully more innocently inquiring. "That was all you? In tribute to your mom?"

There were several moments of silence, broken only by the thudding of their boot soles on the stone, and she was posed to ask something else, when a quiet "yes" drifted back to her.

Darcy nodded to herself, lacing her fingers together in front of her and popping her stiff hand and wrist muscles. "Is Ian going to be okay?"

Another moment of silence, then - "He is in the best possible hands to ensure so."

That totally wasn't an answer, but likely the best she'd get – magic probably gave Ian better odds against an unknown poison than any technology back on Earth. Darcy blinked rapidly to clear her vision – her eyes were getting foggy in the lack of light. Maybe she was getting that tunnel vision thing that happened when you were driving for long periods of time. She shook her head forcefully, hopping up and down a few times to keep herself alert.

"So, I'm gonna throw some theories out there, and you can say whether they're hot or cold," she offered, her voice echoing weirdly as the pathway veered sharply to the right. They could be anywhere by now, and she rubbed her hands along her arms as the air chilled further. There was no reply, and she continued, despising the silence. "You killed Odin and sealed his body up behind a wall." There was a snort of disbelief from the figure pacing along ahead of her, but no other reaction. Pity, she was pretty proud of her Poe reference pulled out of thin air.

She tried a different tactic. "Okay, you turned him into a bug and let him loose outside." A noise that might have been a grunt of approval sounded from ahead. "Oh you like that, huh? Let's see…He's chained up in the cellar being fed gruel and rainwater?"

"That is slightly more accurate," Loki admitted a moment later, but as she looked in front of her, he had disappeared. A huff of impatience sounded from behind her, and she shrieked as a hand clapped down on her bare shoulder. "You're moving too slowly. We haven't much time before Odin has been gone too long from the feast." He shoved her forward, jarring the raven from her arm with a resounding caw of indignation. Darcy scowled at him, but his eyes were on the passageway ahead. They really were a pretty green.

"Don't tell me we're just headed straight back to the party?" Darcy murmured in horror, eyes darting down to her torn and sullied skirts, a hand moving to her ruined hair.

Loki's eyes raked up and down her dress, a smirk curling one side of his mouth upwards. "It is not uncommon for Asgardian ladies to reappear slightly…_ravished_ after an interlude during one of our feasts," he started, and Darcy's jaw swung open.

"Don't you dare. I just met you _and _I don't like you very much." The trickster just smiled wider, brightening the orb of light that lit their way as the hallway seemed to slope downwards. Darcy's mutter of "_Vikings…Interludes, over my dead body…." _was quickly absorbed by the moldering stone bordering her path.

Despite Loki's magical floating lamp setup, Darcy tripped anyways as they started down a crumbling staircase. As she stumbled forward in the dimness, waiting for the sensation of a broken neck, a gauntleted arm was suddenly clamped around her waist to steady her, the brass bracer over the forearm biting into her ribs. She pulled away from Loki's grip and tried a sassy sniff of indignation as she straightened her dress, only succeeding in inhaling several strands of her own hair. The resultant sneeze almost made her fall over anew, and Darcy stomped a boot down impatiently.

"I'm sick of tunnels," she ground out. "Let me out. I need a shower and several hours of hair and makeup repair."

"This is the end of it," Loki murmured, exasperated, gesturing behind her. Darcy turned, spotting a door a few steps further down. "Oh. I have impeccable timing," she declared, trying to save face as she trotted down the last bit of stairway.

It opened into a lavish set of receiving rooms for _someone's _fancy company, all satin-covered sofas and thick, plush carpets. The color scheme was also very pink and gold. Darcy turned to Loki, a snide remark dying on her lips when she noted a strange look in his eyes as he swung the door shut. She noticed it was disguised on this end by a painting, depicting a woman with lovely bronze hair, seated on a stone bench in a garden and flanked by two small boys on either side. One blonde, one ebony-haired.

"Queen's quarters?" She guessed, nodding when Loki did so, moving swiftly across the chambers to crack the door open. She didn't have much of a chance to say anything else before the man in question was thrown across the room by an impact against the door, the heavy chunk of wood paneling nearly crushing Darcy where she stood.

The intern dodged with a yelp of alarm, peering out from behind a nearby sofa after a moment. "Aw hell, this is awkward. Hey, big guy…"

* * *

Thor had stepped away to talk to Volstagg and Fandral in a corner of the hall once he'd finished speaking with the Jötuns. Odin had still not returned to the feast, and so Jane was left to her own devices, poking with a fork at a hank of unidentified meat and trying to avoid uncomfortable eye contact with Sif. She was failing, for every time she raised her eyes to look for Thor, warm brown met icy blue, the warriors' glare drilling right into her.

Finally, she'd had enough, heaving an exasperated sigh and rising from the table. As she swept her hair out of her face, she noticed a Frost Giantess making her way towards Jane. She was actually not taller than Jane by any more than two feet, petite and diminutive for a Jötun, it seemed, her black hair done in glossy plaits to either side of her head. She did not seem as aggressive as the others in the slightest. As she darted past Jane, she whispered four words, jerking her head towards a doorway behind the high table that Jane hadn't noticed before. "I can help you."

Craning her head around to gauge Thor's location, Jane spotted him far across the room, and he didn't look up to see her wave. The giantess was already across the hall, and only Jane had been told to come…Despite the warnings ringing distantly in her mind, sounding suspiciously like Erik Selvig in a cranky mood, Jane was contemplative. Her mentor himself had retired just before Darcy had left, so no one was around to wag fingers. The scientist made a snap decision in the name of helping unravel the mystery of what exactly was afoot in Asgard, turning and whisking after the blue-skinned creature.

The female Frost Giant passed through the tapestry into a hallway that led to the kitchens, as it turned out, and Jane nearly banged her head against the wall for wondering where it could have led before. Where else would all the various roasted creatures she'd seen tonight come from?

The giantess was waiting in the shadow of a doorway, and beckoned hurriedly to Jane, her ebony plaits swinging with the movement. "I am Angrboða," she murmured in a strange, slow accent. "I know what they plan for you, Jane Foster."

Jane was still a little hazy from all the alcohol herself, taking a moment to interpret Angrboða's accent. "For me?" Her question was answered by a wicked grin from the crimson-eyed giantess, whose chuckle accompanied the sound of hurriedly approaching footsteps, and then everything went black.

* * *

Heimdall was angry, angrier than he could ever recall being. The sentinel was a fearsome sight to behold, his posture menacing as he crossed the Bifrost with steady strides. The Einherjar on duty called out to Asgard's watcher, but he ignored them completely, his _Uru _sword drawn and at the ready. He disappeared into a side entrance of the palace as the guards watched, confused. If Heimdall had left his post, something was certainly wrong.

And indeed, it was. How could he have missed this?

Earlier he had seen Odin alerted by a guard, but he had missed completely the felling of the other Einherjar, despite his determined focus. Frustrated, Heimdall strained his vision, channeling all clairvoyant power into Asgard's halls. There was murky darkness, a strange fog in the lower halls, and then, clarity.

Loki, the dead mischief god, appeared, pinning Thor's helpless mortal companion Darcy Lewis against a wall. It looked to be in the bowels of the palace, just the two of them, a menacing expression painted on the trickster's face.

Heimdall lost sight of it then, but he had seen enough.

Now he strode through shortcuts in the palace, batting aside tapestries that had not moved for centuries, unknown as the paths they concealed were, to all but a few. He made his way straight towards the fallen queen's chambers, somehow knowing the trickster would be there. As he approached, the door creaked open, revealing a flash of wary green eyes, and then he was upon it, bulldozing into the door in the hopes that he might crush the lying fiend outright and be done with it.

But Loki was nothing if not quick, slithering out of the way as Heimdall broke down the heavy door, unaware that Darcy Lewis was right in its path. At her scream, Heimdall paused in his tracking of Loki about the room, sword raised. "Lady Darcy?"

The girl in question had dodged the heavy door, appearance bedraggled, hair askew and dress filthy, and he wasn't sure what to make of the scene. The mortal summed it up aptly, muttering dryly how awkward the situation was.

Heimdall blinked, amber eyes flitting away from the mortal, assured she was at least still alive, contrary to what his vision had implied, and stepped back towards Loki. But as he moved forward, the mischief-maker rolled his emerald eyes, image dissolving in a glare of green light. The man himself then appeared behind the girl, producing a dagger and holding it aloft lazily, flicking it through his fingers as his other arm clamped tightly across her chest, pulling her close. "Ah ah ah, watchman," he warned in a low drawl, "We wouldn't want Thor's little friend to be permanently damaged as a result of any more recklessness, would we?" With a glance, Loki sent the door back to its original position, perfectly repaired and effectively sealing in their conversation.

Heimdall made to move forward, swinging out a leg to bat aside an Ottoman stool, but Loki quickly brought the dagger to Darcy's throat, tsking loudly. "It really wouldn't do to break any more of my mother's things than you already have, Heimdall," he said simply, and the sentinel halted his movements.

Loki responded with a patronizing smile and a flicking movement that banished the dagger from his grip, his other arm unlocking from around Darcy to instead take her hand. He quickly guided her around the plush sofa, where he lowered her onto a cushion with the utmost grace. The abrupt show of chivalry was believable, unless one knew Loki. Heimdall leaned back on his feet, sword lowered but still gripped tightly.

"Where is my king?" He ground out, watching as the trickster swung back around the sofa to splay his hands across the back, meeting Heimdall's eyes with his trademark sly smile. Darcy, for her part, looked thoroughly baffled, blinking repeatedly and staring at the hand Loki had taken.

"You need not be concerned with Odin," Loki assured Heimdall, lifting a curled hand to his face and making a show of inspecting his nails. "I am his regent for the time being, and if you don't want a fuss and potentially a war on your incompetent hands, I would let the matter rest, so long as we have intergalactic negotiations falling into place. You are sworn to _me _at the moment."

The remark was a biting one, similar to what Loki had said in his _first _attempt to take Asgard's throne, although this attempt had clearly succeeded. Heimdall's lip curled up in a snarl. "I swore nothing to you, _trickster_. You are a dead man, and you should have stayed so. Your brother, he _mourns. _He sent off a pyre in your name just this morning, and you repay his loyalty and grief with this. The council, Thor, none shall accept this madness."

It was apparently a wrong choice of words, for Loki's eyes rose from his nails with a dark scowl, and suddenly Heimdall was against the far wall, his sword still in the process of falling to the ground. "And you should have been retired long ago," Loki growled, stalking across the room. His power had grown, Heimdall noted with reluctance, tricks and illusion grown into enchanted force that obeyed at the slightest hint of movement in one of Loki's slender fingers.

"I have done nothing to harm Asgard. In fact, as you can see, the realm has _thrived _under my rule," Loki continued, pacing in front of the pinned guardian. Darcy Lewis' wide blue eyes flitted between both gods, her hands twisting in her lap.

"And you never even knew the difference, you fool. But swear allegiance and an oath of silence now, and you may continue your duties as gatekeeper," Loki ended, pivoting towards Heimdall and fixing his green gaze squarely on the amber one he faced.

"Um, if I might," a voice chimed up from behind the mischief god, and both deities' gazes flicked to the mortal intern, now lounging back against the couch. "You're really bad at sealing alliances," she aimed at Loki, frowning. "Did you not take _any _classes on politics before you tried to usurp a throne?"

The silver tongue was silent as Loki blinked at her, his menacing stance relaxing. "I _succeeded,_" he ground out. "Now do shut up," he muttered after a moment, turning back to Heimdall, but there was none of the earlier venom in his voice when he spoke to Darcy.

"No, really, I think it'd aid your cause if you maybe mentioned how Odin would probably be dead right now if he'd actually been himself for the past couple months – that doesn't really make sense aloud, does it," Darcy continued, rising from her seated position and breaking her speech to tap a finger to her chin. "Okay forget that part, but is anyone gonna bring up the assassination attempt lil' ol' me thwarted, like, ten seconds ago?"

"I had it well in hand," Loki broke in, expression darkening again, but Darcy was walking towards them, actually pushing an extended palm into Loki's face as her earnest expression met Heimdall's. The gatekeeper was grasping at the threads of a topic that was apparently being revisited from earlier.

"You seem like a really wise and all-powerful dude, disregarding present circumstances," Darcy started, and the watchman was honestly speechless, but paid close attention to her words. "But I've spent years studying this stuff, even if it was in a lowly _Midgardian _institution," she added with a sneer towards Loki, "And what we need right now is some diplomacy across the board, with each other and not just these ambassadorey dudes handing out in the dining room right now." She was warming to her topic, unwinding her knotted hair from its haggard plait as she spoke, walking in a tight circle. Loki seemed loath to interrupt her at this point as well, his eyes locked on her.

"Obviously I'm out of my element here – I don't even have my bachelor's and I'm in another realm of outer space and stuff," she continued, brows furrowed as her eyes stared unseeing at the floor she paced. "But politics are really all the same. Monarch and subjects, president and supporters, hell, Hitler and his Nazis even, there's a system of trust, and there's a bit of truth in every lie that these guys tell, to get them followers in the first place." Finally, her hair was free from its snarled bindings, and Darcy started finger-combing it, halting her own steps to look at Heimdall again.

Loki finally found his tongue, feigning disinterest as he adjusted the gauntlet covering his right forearm. "Where exactly are you going with this, mortal?"

"I told you, it's _Lady Darcy _to you," she hissed with a furious glare, shaking her head with an eye-roll and turning back to Heimdall. "Long story short, his bird led me to the library and taught me some magic 101 but then I heard a noise and it was totally faux-din here getting his ass kicked," she summed up. "I tackled the other dude and saved the day, unmasking this dude" – she jerked a thumb at Loki as if he was anyone on the street – "in the process."

The green eyes towering above her were rage-filled slits as Loki stared down at the back of her head, but Darcy was staring at Heimdall as she calmly finished her story.

"There was an attempt on L- Odin's life?" Heimdall confirmed slowly, and Darcy nodded, completely at ease as she now seemed.

"So this guy agreed not to kill me if I'd help uncover the nefarious plot that is undoubtedly at play here," she explained. "At least, I think that's how _he'd _say it." She pointed at Loki again, who seemed simultaneously both outraged and shocked speechless at how nonchalantly she was treating him. "I never did get much outta Shakespeare."

The trickster apparently decided to hand the reins of the conversation over to the young mortal, sweeping away to lean against the wall across the room in a marvelous show of pouting. Darcy rolled her eyes dramatically, folding her arms and jerking her head in Heimdall's direction. "If he's gonna help us, can you like, unpin him from the wall like he's a boy band poster?"

There was no visible response, but Heimdall felt an immense pressure lift, and he regained his footing in front of Darcy, nodding his thanks to her. The girl grinned charmingly, waving one hand in the direction of the sofa she'd occupied earlier. "Shall we talk?"

* * *

Darcy Lewis really was quite brilliant, Loki had to admit. Well, in his mind, at least, he'd never tell the girl that. She was as in her element discussing negotiations and leadership tactics as the Foster woman was in dissecting nebulas and stars, and it was interesting to watch. More than interesting – riveting. Who would have thought that the diminutive assistant to an even tinier scientist could have so much…substance?

He watched her cheeks grow pink with passion as she discussed what Heimdall should be looking for from the observatory, her hair shimmering in the light as she leaned forward to propose sneaking into the dignitaries' quarters.

Here, Loki had to speak up, amusement soaking his words. "You propose diplomacy by sneaking into our supposed allies' rooms to rifle through their possessions whilst they drink mead in my halls, unawares?"

Darcy's eyes wagged back and forth, brows raising as she mimed contemplation. "Yuuupp, that pretty much sums it up."

Loki broke into a true smile at that, clicking his tongue for Muninn to come to him. The raven landed on his shoulder with an affectionate croak, Loki's fingers stroking the shining feathers absentmindedly as his own mind raced with a plan.

All of a sudden, Heimdall gasped quietly, his eyes clamping shut. They reopened just as quickly, their amber hues suddenly brighter, somehow. "Jane Foster," he intoned with a groan of dismay. "They have taken her."

Darcy let out an eloquent, panicked stream of elaborate Midgardian curses that Loki would pay to hear an encore of, but not now. Now, Odin had to address his subjects.

* * *

"And so, my palace is your palace, for the varying remainders of your stays here. I hope they are each long and pleasant," Odin finished, raising Gungnir to wave it towards the hall doors, which opened instantly. That was the cue for dozens and dozens of varyingly intoxicated Muspels, Vanites, Asgardians, and Jötuns alike to all begin a flood towards the doors.

Unfortunately, their drunk steps were taking far too long, and Loki debated an exodus spell for a long moment, before Thor grabbed his attention. The thunder god was weaving through the crowd, moving against its flow until he reached the empty high table. "Father, I must speak with you," he said hurriedly, panic choking his words.

"Not now," Odin hissed, feigning a small and nod as Surtur gave one last nod from the doorway of the hall.

The bloody oaf. Darcy was awaiting instructions in the throne room, and he really had no time to deal with Thor. Maybe the fool should join his father for a couple hours, and cool down. Loki sighed with gusto in Odin's voice, sinking into his chair and gesturing at one for Thor to take.

"I cannot find Jane," Thor started immediately, and Loki resisted an eye roll. Little did his brother know that he was well informed on the state of distress the damsel was in. Heimdall's vision was sharper after an enhancing spell Loki had placed on him, at Darcy's cajoling, but Jane's location was not yet triangulated. They knew only that she had been taken, and on Angrboða's cue.

"Are you certain she has not merely returned to her room, fatigued from tonight's festivities?" Odin questioned lightly, casually tipping his goblet towards himself to see if any wine was left in it. Thor's meaty fist suddenly slammed onto the table's surface, and Odin's eye narrowed at him.

"Father, I fear she may have been taken, by those who harmed Ian."

It was going to be a long Lithasblot celebration, and not for pleasant reasons.

* * *

Finally, Thor was dismissed, calmed only minutely by the promise Odin delivered of sending a patrol of Einherjar to scour the palace for the Foster woman.

Loki vented his frustrations with the blonde god on the throne room doors, slamming them open, only to stop short at the sight of Darcy Lewis on his throne. Something in him twisted strangely at the sight of the mortal girl, slung casually across the ornate seat like she owned it, and he took a deep breath before continuing forward.

Darcy's legs hung off one end, booted feet crossed and jogging up and down as she waited for him. One elbow was on the chair's armrest, propping up her head with a hand. The other moved to cover a yawn as her eyes moved sleepily to watch his progress across the room.

"'Bout time," she slurred, stirring herself into a proper sitting position, then promptly pulling her feet up to her chest. He was almost regretful that the long skirts of her ball gown protected her modesty.

"I had courtly matters to attend to," he bit out, vanishing from sight only to reappear behind the throne. She squeaked as his lips brushed her ear, speaking succinctly. "Get. Off. My. Throne."

"Not yours," she grumbled petulantly, batting him away like he was a fly. The _audacity- _But she obeyed a moment later, wrinkling her nose in distaste as she brought a lock of hair to her nose.

"Ugh, I'm gross," she complained.

"If the most pressing matter on your pathetic mind at the moment is hygiene, I have much to worry about," Loki declared, seating himself on the throne. "You've taken this remarkably well, for a human," he added, managing not to sneer towards the end.

"Yeah, well, I'm still probably fifty percent convinced this is a massive hallucination stemming from me ingesting intergalactic shrooms or something, so…" She waggled the handful of hair at him, shrugging.

"Where is Heimdall?" Loki asked tiredly, looking around as if the gatekeeper might appear at any moment with an army to topple the trickster's reign.

"The big guy's gone back to his post, I think," Darcy said, yawning out the last word. "He seems on board to keep watch while we sneak around. He'll only be in contact if something's up."

Fine, Loki thought. The less contact with Heimdall and his holier-than-thou attitude, the better. As long as he kept his mouth shut.

"So, I think I've stayed pretty calm despite the fact my boss and best friend was kidnapped earlier," Darcy started, her voice abruptly wavering. "Can you promise me Jane's gonna be safe?"

"You know I cannot." Was all he said, and her head drooped towards her chest as he caught a quiet sniffle. Oh, great. He'd been waiting for the breakdown all evening, but Darcy only wiped at her face, meeting his gaze with a defiantly-tilted chin.

"If anything happens to her, I _will _make sure you're prosecuted for this, or however the judicial system here works," she said hotly. "Burning at the stake, weighed down with stones and chucked into the river, I don't care. If my friends are being hurt because _you _needed to be the big kid on the playground, you're gonna pay for it, alliance or no alliance." She turned abruptly on her heel, hiking up a fistful of skirts and pounding across the chamber.

When the door had slammed hollowly behind her, Loki was suddenly very aware how quiet a room was when Darcy Lewis wasn't in it, in more than an audible sense.

* * *

Jane awoke with cold stone pressing into her back, her head pounding. She sat up slowly, a palm pressing to her temple as she evaluated her surroundings. Asgard's hospitality sure had changed since her last visit, she thought, noting the once-brightly lit cells of the dungeons were distinctly more medieval. Wall sconces in the main passageway were all that illuminated the cell she was in, the blank white walls of before now replaced with dark, moldy stone. There was no window in the square cell, save for the grated doorway whose bars seemed to sizzle with some imprisonment spell.

"Hello?" She tried, her voice hoarse and more reminiscent of a frog's croak than her own tones.

Jane tried fervently to remember the last thing to happen to her – she'd…She'd tried to get information from that Jötun girl, Angrboða! And then…nothing.

A wet cough from what must have been her neighboring cell distracted her from the pounding in her head, and she tried again. "Hello? Is anyone there?"

She thought she heard the breath of her neighbor hitch, as if in surprise. "Jane Foster?"

Her blood ran cold as she identified the voice, even disfigured as it was by illness and fatigue. "_Odin_?"

"You remember me," replied the voice dryly, ending in a cough.

How could she forget being compared to a goat? Jane wondered, then fear seized her thoughts. "Wait. If you're in here, who's out _there_?"

* * *

**Thanks for reading. -Bon**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hullo guys. Really can't describe the amazingness in my review inbox right now, both here and on AO3 where I dual-post. It means so much. That being said, the writing spark is sputtering right now, and I'm not feeling it much. I'm very busy, and that's contributing heavily, as well as the other serial I've got going. I'm juggling quite a lot, but as always, I aim to please, and am trying for longer updates when they do happen. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Enjoy.**

* * *

"The girl's going to attempt to murder me with her own bare hands, I've no doubt," Loki mused aloud, raking his fingers through his hair, his only audience the scornful company of Huginn, who was high in the rafters of the aviary. The raven did not deign to respond with a single caw. The trickster's mind was racing, Heimdall's remarks about Thor's mourning of him chasing memories of Darcy Lewis' wide blue eyes admonishing him, all of it shadowed by the image of a cloaked figure coming at him.

As if on cue, the door swung open, a wintry breeze blowing in as the slight form of Angrboða entered the aviary, cutting a little curtsy with a sardonic smile, her fur cloak rustling against the stone. "Everything is in place," she started, but Loki's attention was on the raven in the rafters, a scowl creasing his expression.

"This one will likely out me as well," he muttered distractedly, giving Huginn a final glare before turning to Angrboða, folding his arms across his chest expectantly. "But I was damned to the depths long ago, so what is the point in attempting redemption now?" He was talking aloud as if to himself, and Angrboða wondered if perhaps the solitude and the keeping of his own counsel had driven him mad – but then again, Loki had always teetered towards the shallow end of sanity.

"As I said," Angrboða said in clipped tones, "it's done." Loki finally met her eyes, his green ones alight with something unidentifiable. "Foster is safely stowed?"

"Yes, like a sack of grain placed in the larder for winter's arrival," the frost giantess replied dryly. "This favor will count us even, trickster."

"Oh, come Angrboða, you've always been fond of me, admit it," Loki crooned, whisking closer and circling her, a hand lifting to swipe gently across her dusky cheek.

"I was fond of your mother, and moonlit rides on Sleipnir. You were something to hold onto so I wouldn't fall off his back! I'd hardly call it a passing fancy," the giantess maintained, pivoting to keep him in sight. One could never be too careful with those who lived and breathed deception. "In any case, the deed is done, the little scientist set aside like the expensive silverware until we have use for her."

"Don't speak so crudely, Angrboða," Loki murmured, pausing by a window to watch proceedings outside. It was dawn, the day after, and he was more wary than ever of his surroundings. "It's not as if we've locked her in the dungeons, I only mean to keep my brother's toy out of harm's way until we ascertain what is happening here." Angrboða's face had gone very still, her eyes locked on the floor.

"…We _haven't _locked her in the dungeons, have we?" Loki ventured, craning his head to look into her eyes. Angrboða coughed lightly. "You did not exactly have a guest room prepared for those who have been inducted into protective custody," she managed defensively, and Loki's eyes rose to the ceiling.

"May the Norns have mercy," he muttered. "Are there any occupied cells near hers?"

"There was a ragged hermit in the neighboring one, but that was all," the frost giantess replied, edging towards the door, and Loki's eyes suddenly looked like they would set her aflame any moment. She wouldn't put it past his abilities, either, her hands unconsciously raising in a defensive movement.

"I suppose I have my own stupidity to thank," Loki said flatly, waving a hand in dismissal. Angrboða darted out the door, slamming the oaken thing as if it would keep Loki and his frustration locked away. Moving quickly back towards the frost giant quarters and hoping she hadn't been missed, the giantess decided she had never more regretted that fling with the trickster so many centuries ago that had left her with such a desire to please him.

The reigning Allfather of Asgard stormed out of the aviary shortly after, magicking Odin's face over his own, and a heavy cloak over his shoulders. Visiting hours had started.

* * *

Darcy was standing at the window of her room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring hard at the cloaked figure slipping through the still-dark grounds. She couldn't sleep, not with her boss and friend abducted and possibly hurt, not with the intern she was responsible for in a magically-induced coma in the hospital ward of a strange realm, not with the pressure of a clandestine alliance with an alien criminal on her shoulders. And _someone _was wandering around who didn't want to be seen, someone sporting a nonetheless tell-tale scepter, the idiot; she watched a moment longer, noting where they headed, withdrawing a hand from around herself to drum fingertips on the stone windowsill.

"I don't even get _paid_, you know," she huffed to herself, a cheerful caw answering her. Turning with a slight smile, Darcy held out a pale hand, the raven fluttering to her arm almost immediately. She was getting really fond of the bird; he was tidier company than Thor, less chatty than Ian, less bossy than Jane. An abrupt sniffle escaped her, and she briskly rubbed the back of her spare hand across her nose. "What did I do to deserve all this? Sworn to secrecy on pain of death in the middle of space meets Harry Potter and recruited to solve an alien assassination attempt mystery, I don't even know. I should write novels."

The raven only nuzzled against her arm in response, and Darcy sighed. Earlier, she had checked in on Erik, who'd been sleeping off the inevitably-massive hangover that was symptom of an Asgardian celebration; he'd been increasingly withdrawn since their arrival, but it was keeping him out of harm's way, and since the danger of just walking down the halls had been amped drastically, Darcy was all for him taking nap after nap.

"Sooner it's all solved and dealt with, the sooner I can return to exams and navigating London's crazy side streets in a beat-up Volvo." She moved towards her bed, snatching up a cloak her maid, Finna, had left her earlier. Wearing jeans and a Henley under it felt mildly stupid, but it was warm, and hid her outfit and face well. Throwing the navy-blue velvet around herself, Darcy held a hand aloft for the bird to take flight, gesturing for it to lead the way.

* * *

"You said it would be simple," grated Hagen's cold tones, a grimace pulling at the giant's features as he paced the tight confines of the quarters he'd been assigned. The target of his frustrations was a small basin filled with a viscous liquid, shimmering with the image of a cloaked figure. "The girl would be removed, and then the Allfather and we would _win_."

"Calm yourself," came the dry, almost robotic tones of his hidden ally. "On the first charge, it was your own men who failed to deliver the toxic enchantments in an _effective _manner. My visions are not detailed stories, _Jotun_, they are guidelines, and they did not show any hindrance. That was for you to traverse."

Hagen whirled to face the basin, face alight with fury and crimson eyes squinted, but the cloaked figure held up a hand, a flash of gold hinting at the armor underneath the draped garment. "All is not lost, my chilly friend. We have merely had to make…adjustments, to the plan, in light of the fact that all is not as it seemed."

The leader of the Frost Giants cocked his head to the side. "Foster is now missing. My people assure me it was not our doing, and the thunder god suspects something. Odinson will not rest until his puny brain unravels what is at hand, or his hammer _smashes _it. We must move quickly. Adjust _faster_."

"Speed is, unfortunately, not one of my _strong_ suits, you fool," the cloaked figure spat bitterly, its voice further distorted by the magical fluid it was communicating through. "I leave that to your men. And I have waited so long for this, longer than you have lived among your Jötun hills. Do not speak to me of your misguided impatience in the face of a plan I have spent centuries composing."

Hagen, admonished, fell silent, twitching fingers adjusting the furred cape thrown across his shoulders. "What would you have me do?" He asked quietly, the picture of sudden humility.

"The girl is still a high priority. The Lady Lewis, not the silly little scientist. She is far too…_aware _of her surroundings, but camouflages it well with her obnoxious mannerisms. She must be dealt with. Laufeyson is distracted at the moment, and the gatekeeper will once again have completely adequate _hindsight_."

Hagen was taken aback. "Laufeyson?"

"Did I stutter, Jötun? Yes, Laufeyson. He secretly usurped the throne at some point, likely when the dark elves destroyed Asgard's infrastructure. He thrives in the chaos, and the damned forces of Malekith gave Loki the exact momentum he needed while the counsel was blinded," the bland tones continued, though a tint of bitterness was seeping into the words. "Do not act so surprised. Nothing is ever as it seems with him, and now we must not only remove him, but the true Odin, and likely the thunder god as well. Are you listening?"

"Yes, Master," Hagen murmured, shooting a glance around him and moving closer, face almost submerging in the enchanted substance as his orders were relayed.

* * *

It was kind of cool having an all-knowing raven as a sidekick, Darcy thought, wondering idly if she'd be able to take him home with her. He was probably _killer _as a test aide. It was still very early, most hallway torches died down to near embers, and she kept tripping, thanking the heavens she was wearing sneakers. If she'd been wearing those heeled boots, she'd have broken a vital bone or two by now.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she muttered lowly, spotting the doorway she'd seen someone duck into earlier. Taking a deep breath, she held her head high, summoning courage as she stepped down onto a flight of stone stairs. "Just like a wine cellar," she thought, pretending this was a foray into her rich friend Megan's basement for a fine Bordeaux, instead of an apparent trek into the dungeons of an alien realm. The raven skipped along, flapping shortly from one torch sconce to the next. Her fears were realized the further she went, the staircase angling left, then right, finally leaving her in a wide hallway bordered with something that looked like cells. Brightly-illuminated, with white interiors blank of much in the way of furniture, she noted how freakin' _boring _it must be to be an enemy of the state in Asgard. Most were empty, as it was apparently a pretty peaceful era as Asgardian times went – probably because Thor wasn't around stepping on different realms' toes with his _hammer _– but a few contained some rough-looking goblin-like creatures that looked like they'd walked from Isengard, and something vaguely humanoid that a) needed pants and b) could stand to lose about a thousand pounds.

Keeping the hood pulled up, Darcy tried to move quickly through, skimming the cells for whomever had preceded her into the dungeon of doom. She saw no one, coming to a stop at a heavy iron door at the end. Her brows furrowed when she saw no guards anywhere – incapacitated? Dismissed for a coffee break? She had no way of knowing…Oh, and her handy raven pal had disappeared to. She tried a hushed whisper of the bird in question's name, but it was nowhere.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Darcy reached out tentative fingers to try the hefty-looking door, blinking when it opened without protest. Go big or go home, right? Jane was missing, after all.

It was her lucky day, or perhaps unlucky, as a thumping noise sounded from the passageway behind the opened door. Slipping inside for better or worse, Darcy lowered the hood for maximum visibility, hiking up the cloak's hem as she traversed another set of stairs, distinctly more mildew and slimy than the latter.

"Bleck," she exclaimed, putting out a hand to steady herself against the close walls, her palm coming away covered in a dark green paste. Hopefully contact wasn't poisonous, and she smeared the substance off on her cloak before continuing down to where the floor leveled out again.

She must be in the dungeons of the dungeons of the dungeons. Altogether a different scene greeted her down here, a spooky medieval atmosphere much less inviting than the cozy cells upstairs, if that's what those could be called. Everything was dark stone, slime-covered, torches lining the wall mostly unlit, and sparingly spaced out. Somewhere water was dripping, and that explained the presence of the algae-like slime she'd used as hand lotion a moment before.

Darcy started forward, looking for any signs of life in these cells. Spiked metal grids covered the entryways, and a dull buzzing sound filled the air, much like when you were near an active power pole. Stepping forward, she examined the bars more closely, poking a finger out to touch them-

"I wouldn't do that," croaked a weary voice, and her hand shot back immediately into the folds of her cloak, Darcy whipping around at the words. "Who-" Simultaneously, another voice piped up in the corridor- "_Darcy?_"

"J…jane?" Darcy questioned, squinting in the dim light that a struggling torch supplied. She moved closer to the cells on the opposite side of the corridor, stopping short when the inhabitant of the first waved a tiny hand at her. "Oh my god are you _okay?!I"_

"Darcy, what are you doing here? I don't think it's safe-" Jane started, but a harsh cough from the cell next to hers cut her off, the wet sound making Darcy cringe.

"Who's in here with you?" Darcy questioned aloud, even as she crept into view of the next cell. All she could make out was a bundle of rags tossed into a corner, but the rags took shape as the being summoned the strength to stand and move closer. An old man was revealed, shredded bits of cloth clutched around him for warmth, his feet looking bare and blue with cold from what she could see. He moved, shadows adjusting themselves across his face, revealing a gaping hole where his right eye ought to be, the wound looking somehow unhealed after what had to have been centuries, if anything she'd read had been accurate.

"Odin." She said as a statement, no question in her tone, and the old hermit nodded, gasps for breath all that she could hear for a moment.

"You have me at an advantage," he managed, leaning against the wall near the metal spikes that allowed a glimpse into the hallway, symbolizing both incarceration and freedom at the same time. "I do not know your name, mortal."

"You know I'm mortal, do you care about anything more than that?" Darcy spat, abruptly annoyed with the victim of Loki's she now faced. "You called Jane a goat."

"That seems to be the sole remark of mine that has ever been heeded by her, and now you," Odin replied with a wheezy laugh. He really didn't sound good – was there a barrier in place barring magical metabolisms in here or something?

"Shouldn't have compared a _brilliant _Midgardian scientist to a barnyard animal," Darcy maintained with a huff, folding her arms across herself and trying not to shiver. It was freezing in here, not at all conducive to good health.

"Darcy, you've got to _go-" _Jane started, before a hand was clamping heavily over Darcy's mouth, muffling her shriek, and an arm locked across her abdomen like a vice grip. Her eyes were already rolling in unamused recognition of the elaborate array of rings cutting into her cheeks, her captor pulling her across the hall to shove her against the blank stone wall between two cells. Thankfully, the magical electrical fence or whatever was apparently dormant over here.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," she managed when the arm preventing her from breathing fell away, the hand preventing her speech following suit. "And get rid of those nasty rings if you're going to manhandle me into compliance, that icky snake one is gonna split my lip or something." She rubbed the back of her hand across her face, grimacing to prove her point.

Loki paid her no mind, his fury making it difficult to speak. He tried so hard to concoct these plans, to help himself, Asgard, mostly himself but Asgard by extension, to rid the realm of an ornery tyrant – but then a little mortal came along and started to systematically tear apart every brick he had laid. Folding hands trembling with rage across his chest, he leveled a glare at Darcy Lewis. "What are you doing down here?"

"I think a better question is what is Jane doing down her, and your Dad, and why are you acting so unconcerned? If Jane's next to Odin, who you-" Darcy's blue gaze clouded, eyes lowering in thought, and then her eyes narrowed in realization. She pinned him with a glare, shoving herself off from the wall and pushing as hard as she could against Loki's chest. "What have you _done?_"

The deity flicked a wrist, the door upstairs slamming shut and a silencing spell covering the area simultaneously. This wouldn't end well. "I'm going to assume you're not referring to the obvious incarceration of my supposed "father". Miss Foster is down here for her protection," Loki started stiffly, Darcy's flailing fists having no effect.

"_Bullshit_," the intern raged, swinging away from Loki to jab a finger in Odin's direction. "Your magically-immune-systemed _father_ is like, dying of space-pneumonia because it's so awful down here, and you've got my eighty-pound human boss locked in the exact same conditions? Sorry Jane," she cut over to the scientist "I know you eat on the regular and stuff, you're just, you know, smallish-" Darcy's eyes shot back to Loki's, her jaw locked in indignation.

"You think you can just pull people off the Asgardian streets and tuck them away when they inconvenience your diabolical master plans?!" She was shrieking now, and Loki's eyes cut to either side, eager for escape but knowing he had to deal with this, or his enemies would.

"_Loki _is…?" Jane's baffled question was a quiet but effective interruption, all eyes turning to the petite astrophysicist as she crept as close as she could to the door of her cell. "Would anyone mind maybe explaining? And getting me a bottle of water? And releasing me? Priority of those things is open for interpretation-"

"Silence." Loki snapped, moving to stare Darcy down, the crown of her head more than a foot below his. "You will _not _give me orders, you will not tell me how to run my affairs. Your life is spared because you represented some sort of usefulness, but perhaps I was misguided in that assumption. You are loud, rash, and _far _too inquisitive for your own good to survive for long in the midst of what troubles Asgard. I should kill you on the spot, or send you to Heimdall for expulsion from the realm." Loki was done, finished with acting on the whims of the short mortal girl, and she needed to know her place.

"You won't send me away," Darcy challenged, propping herself up on her toes. "You _need _me."

Loki's eyes narrowed, but he backed up a half-step, making Darcy grin in victory. "Admit it."

"I need _no one _except an enemy to fight," he hissed, "And there is apparently one within my halls. I have bigger fish to fry, as you mortals say, than you and your trifling worries, Lady Darcy."

A soft caw interrupted them, and Darcy and Loki turned as one to see Muninn the raven hobble into view, on foot. On foot…? The bird was moving unsteadily across the floor, and Darcy squealed out a curse before darting forward to meet the bird as it toppled to the side, cradling it in her arms.

It was freezing, several ebony feathers glazed over as if…frozen, and bits of a snowy substance coated its face and beak. Darcy's horrified gaze met Loki's, who pivoted in a circle, drawing a dagger just as a figure came barreling towards him from the shadows deeper in the corridor.

Darcy yelped in alarm, darting towards Jane's cell to get out of the way of the skirmish. Then she noticed the lukewarm, sticky substance coating her hand, and the raven's stilling movements. "No, no no," she uttered, tears already filling her eyes and clogging her throat. "What, what do I do?"

She skirted past Jane's cell, pressing up against the barrier guarding Odin. "How do I help your bird?!"

The aged god had sunk down on a bench near his cell door, eyes on the fight and expression somber, but he roused slightly at her words. "That is Muninn."

"Yes, yes it's Money, he's hurt!" Darcy cried desperately, adjusting the wounded raven to cradle it in the crook of one arm while the other flailed in the air. This would happen to her, playing vet in the middle of a battle in the dungeons of Asgard. Sometimes her life was like Grey's Anatomy meets Dungeons and Dragons, and she wasn't sure that was a good thing, especially when her tears were thawing the frostbitten wounds of her newfound friend.

"I need Gungnir." Odin replied simply, and Darcy turned to evaluate the fight she'd ignored after seeing the bird was hurt.

Loki was fighting a Frost Giant, by the looks of it, the other creature's stature dwarfing even Loki's lanky frame. He'd cast off his cloak, leaving it flat upon the ground, and was making quick swipes at the Frost Giant with a dagger. The Jötun was slower, but clearly stronger, catching Loki in the sides with several backhanded blows. But in the process, he'd maneuvered it into a slightly advantageous position-

With no time to spare, Darcy pulled off her own cloak, bundling the injured raven in it and darting into the fray. Glad she was wearing jeans and a casual top and no stupid voluminous skirts, Darcy weaved between the frost giant's legs, her thoughts only on saving the raven. Quickly, she grabbed the edges of Loki's discarded cloak; the Jötun was standing squarely atop the garment, and Darcy gave it a tug with all her might, distracting the giant into turning to look down at her. In the process, its balance was compromised, and her meager strength succeeded in toppling the icy being to the ground, giving Loki the literal upper hand.

Gungnir was tossed off to the side, and Darcy took the chance to snatch it up while Loki delivered a hopefully-fatal blow to the Jötun. She made it back to Odin's cell, and at his snapped command, blindly jabbed the scepter into the prison's barrier. Something snapped and crackled, and a moment later the buzzing noise was gone, the entryway to the cell smoking.

The scepter was wrenched from her hands, Odin passing her to kneel down by the raven, who was cawing weakly in a way that tore at Darcy's heart. She was _so _glad the true Allfather hadn't chosen now for a lecture on the Loki situation. Hearing the sounds of the scuffle behind her diminish, she collapsed to her knees beside the injured bird, tears dripping as she stared at it, willing it to be okay. Jane was forgotten for the moment, the scientist safe within her cell for the time being.

Then an outraged roar echoed in the chamber, and Odin, tending to the raven with a few murmured words and some pretty lights emanating from the scepter, was thrown unceremoniously backwards by a hand gesture from Loki.

"_No_," Darcy started, lurching to her feet and moving to cover the true Allfather's weakened form. "Loki, Muninn is hurt!"

The trickster paused, trying to remember how many times she'd called him by his name, her voice dispersing the rage misting his eyesight at Odin's appearance, free from his cell. He took a step backward, deciding to give himself time to calm down. Swiveling, he murmured an incantation over the body of the frost giant, which immediately burst into flame, dissolving in less than a minute. The only thing left then was Loki's dagger, which fell to the floor with a too-loud clatter in the now-hushed dungeon passage. He bent to retrieve it, his movements slow and deliberate, while he listened to Darcy assist Odin in healing the raven he'd known since childhood.

They didn't die, those things, not easily, at least; there was some talk of them being channeled into Odin's life force, only one reason of many why the old man was still alive. Frigga had first introduced him to the bird, coaxing it from Odin's shoulder with a piece of bread and bringing it and Loki to her private gardens to bond. Ebony wings flashing in the sunlight, whiffs of Frigga's rosy perfume – all that remained of memories from those sessions, and the wounded bird cradled in Darcy Lewis' arms was all that physically remained.

Loki moved forward, slowly, as if in a dream, eyes intent on the black form whose blood had stained the olive green fabric of the henley Darcy wore. Odin was hunched over, the odd cough interrupting his murmurings, but as Loki reached Darcy's side, the old man fell back onto his haunches, giving a tired nod. The bird started to struggle in Darcy's grip, cawing almost petulantly, and Darcy gave a gurgly laugh through her tears.

And then, a lot happened at once. Loki lunged back towards Odin, wrenching Gungnir from his grip and slamming him back into his cell, where he fell to the floor. Darcy leapt up to stop Loki and assist Odin, but Loki grabbed her around the middle, physically wrestling her away from the cell as a wave from Gungnir re-sealed the doorway.

Darcy's snarls of protestation echoed in the hallway, even as she twisted and pried at Loki's grip. He towed her relentlessly towards the exit that led back upstairs, finally setting her on the first step and leaning in close, close enough to catch the flowery scent of her hair and to catch how the buttons on her top strained against her chest. His eyes flicked up to lock onto the wall behind her as his lips stopped an inch from her ear. "Do not undermine me again. Do not follow every single cloaked being you see. Do not try to come here again. And for the Norns' sake, do _not _put my raven in harm's way like that again. Do you understand me, Darcy Lewis?"

His words were quiet, silky, and Darcy was suddenly afraid. She dared to swallow, nodding, remaining in place as Loki flitted away, calling the rapidly-recovering raven to perch on his shoulder and examining the binding spells on Odin's cell. Apparently satisfied, he then turned to the next cell, where Jane Foster stood wide-eyed, absorbing everything she'd just witnessed.

"You died," she managed. "I…I mourned you, with Thor. Yesterday."

"So I hear," Loki replied dryly. "My pride hesitates to do this but I must apologize, Miss Foster. You were merely meant to be retrieved for your own safety, but it appears there was a miscommunication in the area of accommodations."

"Oh, I was meant to be in a five-star tower in the ramparts with a killer view?" Jane's eyebrow was cocked, and she folded her arms across her chest as she scoffed at Loki. "You _kidnapped _me."

"Orchestrated it," Loki corrected airily, stepping back and analyzing the spells Angrboða had used on the cell, slightly different from the kind he'd used for Odin. With a wave of his hand in a downward formation that resembled a letter Z, something fizzled and shorted out, the gate to Jane's cell opening cleanly as the magical light on its bars died. "Now, if you'll come with me and Lady Darcy, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement that satisfactorily sees to your safety while you are here in Asgard."

"Why not just send us home?" Jane ventured, as she stepped outside of the cell, looking uncertainly back at the miserable Odin in his own cell.

"Because your abrupt absence, the mortal armcandy of my dear brother being whisked through the Bifrost, would signify that we know something is amiss," Loki said as if he were speaking to a child. Jane stiffened at his wording, but as he stretched out an arm to indicate she should go first, she complied, silently. As if he felt further explanation was needed, Loki continued. "I am endeavoring to ensure neither of you meet the fate your friend Ian has, but you are not making it easy." The raven cocked its head in Darcy's direction; she _really _hoped it wasn't regretting its liking of her.

"Why go so far to protect us?" Jane asked, as they started up the stairs, gathering up the tattered skirts of her evening gown from the day before. "Thought you hated mortals."

"I admired your feistiness when you arrived bearing the Ether, Lady Jane," came Loki's quiet reply, trailing up the stairs from behind Jane and Darcy. "And did I not protect you adequately in Svartalfheim? Give up my life for Thor?" He now sounded anything but serious, and yet Darcy could tell he was.

"Alright, I confess, I find your conversation rather titillating at times, Miss Foster." Jane didn't respond, Darcy whipping her head back to raise a brow at the last remark, but Loki merely curled a lip in a sneer at the intern. "Intellect is so refreshing amongst the company I tend to keep here."

Darcy opened her mouth to respond nastily in kind, but instead bumped into Jane, who was cautiously easing open the door Darcy had entered through. Loki was suddenly between them, steering Darcy firmly but gently to the side and proceeding through the doorway first.

* * *

Naturally, a hangover could only be nursed by encouraging the onset of another, or so Volstagg believed, already steadily plowing his way through a trio of tankards filled to the brim with mead. Fandral was watching him across the table, hair askew and eyes blurry with sleep, and if Volstagg wasn't mistaken, the shoulder of his tunic torn nearly completely off.

"Wild night, eh Fandral?" the jolly warrior questioned, filling his mouth with a hank of wild boar as soon as he was done speaking, for one must be economical with movement of the mouth if not chewing. The swashbuckler responded with a groan and a knowing grin, swiping several strands of golden hair off his face as he raised a goblet of watered-down wine to his lips.

"Not as wild, it appears, as Thor's," Fandral managed after wetting his parched throat, nodding to their friend, who was seated next to Volstagg looking as if he hadn't slept a wink. Expression morose, he wasn't even touching the food in front of him, and an affronted Volstagg was taking all of it bit by bit and ingesting it himself. "Whatever is the matter?" He managed between gulps and swigs, and Thor just shrugged.

A moment later, though, he perked up considerably as Darcy Lewis whisked into the room, a servant girl of some sort by her side. She headed straight for the table, snatching up several Asgardian breakfast pastry delicacies, bidding them all a cheery good morning, and then heading straight out of the room again. Once she was out of sight, Thor, who had half-risen out of his chair, fully vacated it, running after the mortal girl, who was now whistling.

Fandral and Volstagg were left to stare at each other. "I wonder if we perhaps should have…refrained from…" Fandral started. "Inviting them," Volstagg said, cramming something resembling a whole bagel into his mouth. "Not for character reasons," Fandral hastened to add. "But there is strangeness at work," Volstagg confirmed, emptying another tankard. "Exactly," the slighter warrior declared, and the two looked as one towards the door Thor had just left through.

* * *

Thor caught up to Darcy in the hallway, who turned to her servant and hurriedly shooed her on down the hallway. "Chamber reassignment," Darcy explained, waving airily in the direction the other girl was heading. "She's got to get it ready and all," she added on, stumbling over her words in her attempt to stall him.

Thor blinked down at Darcy. "Have you heard from Jane?" He asked urgently, hands moving to Darcy's shoulders. She straightened, peering up at him. "Uh, yeah. Come on, she's fine but we gotta talk."

When they arrived at Darcy's supposed new chambers, there was now no maidservant to be seen, only Jane, curled up with her knees to her chest, sitting on the bed. Thor moved right to her, sweeping her into his arms and appraising her for any damage. Thankfully, she'd changed into some leggings and a sweater of Darcy's after the Asgardian equivalent of a shower, the shredded evening gown likely burned, and now she patted at Thor's biceps soothingly. "I'm okay. But we are _all _in danger."

Darcy, meanwhile, was nonchalantly edging around the room, trying to make sure Loki wasn't hidden in any corners, or the closet, or hanging from the windowsill and spying on them. He'd been needed to remove the illusion that made Jane appear as a servant, but he also could not be seen by Thor – they weren't ready for Loki's presence to be known by anyone else. Jane had barely been persuaded to keep the secret from Thor, but when assured it would protect all those involved, she'd agreed. They'd checked in on Erik earlier, to show him Jane was alright, but he had been pretty loopy from just taking his prescriptions, and just nodded a lot until they left. Poor guy wasn't likely gonna make it to the feast tonight.

Odin was still locked in his cell, something Darcy was extremely perturbed by, but she now doubted she could get anywhere near those cells, much less find the door unlocked again. And again, she had been targeted. That chilling knowledge was the elephant in the room as the trio had left Odin to seek new quarters for Darcy, Jane under strict instructions to stay in the rooms at all times. Darcy was only allowed to leave if accompanied by Thor, one of his close company, or Loki – the raven, if all else failed, but Loki was loath to leave Muninn to the consequences of proximity to Darcy Lewis, wanted mortal #1.

Twice now, an attack on Darcy; Loki had scanned the area when he'd descended to the dungeons to check on Odin and Jane, and the frost giant must have entered when the trickster was distracted, wrangling Darcy's indignation into submission. The first had been the demonized pear that had felled Ian, and Darcy was now not only afraid to eat much of anything, but to walk anywhere, either. She didn't like it. She wanted to leave and rejoin the familiar atmosphere of Jane's Mom's condo and not deal with any of the political drama this realm had fished out for itself, knowledgeable as she _had _proved, though. Loki could suck on that.

The intern in question shivered, closing the open window and wrinkling her nose at Jane and Thor's open affection towards each other as Jane explained her instructions from Odin. Good ol' Odin, the scapegoat for anything requiring exact compliance without questions asked. When Thor and Jane's mouths hadn't separated after three whole minutes, Darcy gave up, settling in with her laptop. There was another feast tonight, one she would have to be ready for, but in the meantime, she could go through…Oh, that. As she flipped open the laptop, the last program it had been running flashed across the screen – the pictures of the false Odin. She saved everything to a special folder, then closed it all down, opting instead to draft several blog posts while she had no wifi reception.

Tonight was a big night – she'd have to go foraging around in the rooms of the Jötuns and Muspels, under Heimdall's watchful eye, all while the culprits in question were assumedly gorging themselves at the secondary honorary feast. Loki would have to preside over it, and the thought dampened her spirits slightly – _only _because he proved slightly helpful when large, literally over-bearing creatures from other worlds pounced and tried to kill her. Muninn was still with Loki, perhaps recuperating a little more with the help of his magic – she really was comforted by the bird, and hated the thought that she'd brought it into harm's way.

Heaving a sigh, Darcy shoved her laptop to the side, curling up on the chaise lounge to catch a nap; she'd gotten perhaps two hours of sleep that night, worrying about Jane, and she just simply could _not _with the world for any longer. The soft murmurings of Thane, as she called them often, aloud, lulled her into a light slumber.

* * *

All the while, the Jötuns and their collaborators were moving their next pawn into position on the chess board that Asgard had become overnight.


End file.
